Direkt zum Inhalt

Stroeymeyt, Nathalie ; Brunner, Elisabeth ; Heinze, Jürgen

“Selfish worker policing” controls reproduction in a Temnothorax ant

Stroeymeyt, Nathalie , Brunner, Elisabeth und Heinze, Jürgen (2007) “Selfish worker policing” controls reproduction in a Temnothorax ant. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 61 (9), S. 1449-1457.

Veröffentlichungsdatum dieses Volltextes: 05 Aug 2009 13:50
Artikel
DOI zum Zitieren dieses Dokuments: 10.5283/epub.5660


Zusammenfassung

Animal societies, including those of humans, are under constant threat by selfish individuals, who attempt to enforce their own interests at the cost of the group. In the societies of bees, wasps, and ants, such individual selfishness can be prevented by "policing," whereby workers or queens impede the reproduction of other individuals by aggression, immobilization, or egg eating. In this study, ...

Animal societies, including those of humans, are under constant threat by selfish individuals, who attempt to enforce their own interests at the cost of the group. In the societies of bees, wasps, and ants, such individual selfishness can be prevented by "policing," whereby workers or queens impede the reproduction of other individuals by aggression, immobilization, or egg eating. In this study, we report on a particular kind of reproduction control in the ant Temnothorax unifasciatus, which can be considered as a selfish act itself. We experimentally induced workers to lay eggs by dividing several colonies into two halves, one with and one without a queen. In queenless colonies, workers established rank orders by aggression and several top-ranking workers started to reproduce. Upon reunification, egg-laying workers mostly stopped behaving aggressively. They were neither attacked by the queen nor by random workers, but instead received infrequent, nondestructive, targeted aggression from a few workers, most of which became fertile when the queen was later removed. The introduction of differentially stained worker-laid and queen-laid eggs in queenright fragments did not lead to a selective removal of worker-laid eggs. Hence, there appears to be no collective worker policing in T. unifasciatus. Instead, reproduction appears to be controlled mostly through a few attacks from high-ranking workers, which, in this way, might attempt to selfishly increase their chances of future reproduction.



Beteiligte Einrichtungen


Details

DokumentenartArtikel
Titel eines Journals oder einer ZeitschriftBehavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
Verlag:SPRINGER
Ort der Veröffentlichung:NEW YORK
Band:61
Nummer des Zeitschriftenheftes oder des Kapitels:9
Seitenbereich:S. 1449-1457
Datum2007
InstitutionenBiologie und Vorklinische Medizin > Institut für Zoologie
Biologie und Vorklinische Medizin > Institut für Zoologie > Zoologie/Evolutionsbiologie (Prof. Dr. Jürgen Heinze)
Identifikationsnummer
WertTyp
10.1007/s00265-007-0377-3DOI
Stichwörter / KeywordsCOLLECTIVE DECISION-MAKING; MONOGYNOUS QUEENLESS ANT; PONERINE ANT; EUSOCIAL HYMENOPTERA; INSECT SOCIETIES; SOCIAL INSECTS; DIACAMMA SP; LEPTOTHORAX ANTS; HONEY-BEES; CONFLICT; kin conflict; worker policing; dominance; Temnothorax unifasciatus
Dewey-Dezimal-Klassifikation500 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik > 570 Biowissenschaften, Biologie
500 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik > 590 Tiere (Zoologie)
StatusVeröffentlicht
BegutachtetJa, diese Version wurde begutachtet
An der Universität Regensburg entstandenJa
Dokumenten-ID5660

Bibliographische Daten exportieren

Nur für Besitzer und Autoren: Kontrollseite des Eintrags

nach oben