Queen control over reproductive decisions -: no sexual deception in the ant Lasius niger
Queen control over reproductive decisions -: no sexual deception in the ant Lasius niger
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DOI：
10.1046/j.1365-294x.2003.01838.x
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发表时间：
2003-06-01
影响因子：
4.9
通讯作者：
Keller, L
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Jemielity, S;Keller, L
在过去的十年里，群居昆虫群体中的蚁后-工蜂冲突受到了广泛的关注。在许多物种中，工蜂会根据自己的优势调整群体的性别比例，或者产生自己的雄性后代。然而，在其他一些物种中，蚁后似乎能够阻止工蜂做出自私的繁殖决定。到目前为止，还没有人研究蚁后是如何控制性别比例和父系关系的。在这项研究中，我们使用了一个明显受到蜂王控制的黑尾小蜂种群，以表明性欺骗不能解释蜂王在该种群中的优势。性欺骗假说认为蚁后应该通过把雄蜂伪装成雌蜂来防止工蜂歧视雄蜂。与这一假设的预测相反，我们发现工蜂能够在发育的早期区分雄性和雌性幼虫：在早春，工蜂通常只把雌性或雄性幼虫放在巢的最上层，尽管两种类型的幼虫都必须存在。在这个时期，雄蚁的体重只有最终干重的11%，在这个发育阶段（根据两个模型），工蚁仍然会从用雌性或工蚁生产的雄性取代蜂王生产的雄性中受益。因此，本研究表明，性欺骗不能解释雌蜂对群体性别比例和雄性亲本的明显控制。
Queen-worker conflicts in social insect societies have received much attention in the past decade. In many species workers modify the colony sex ratio to their own advantage or produce their own male offspring. In some other species, however, queens seem to be able to prevent workers from making selfish reproductive decisions. So far, little effort has been made to find out how queens may keep control over sex ratio and male parentage. In this study we use a Lasius niger population under apparent queen control to show that sexual deception cannot explain queen dominance in this population. The sexual deception hypothesis postulates that queens should prevent workers from discriminating against males by disguising male brood as females. Contrary to the predictions of this hypothesis, we found that workers are able to distinguish male and female larvae early in their development: in early spring workers generally placed only either female or male larvae in the uppermost chambers of the nest, although both types of larvae must have been present. At this time males were only at 11% of their final dry weight, a developmental stage at which (according to two models) workers would still have benefited from replacing queen-produced males by females or worker-produced males. This study thus demonstrates that sexual deception cannot account for the apparent queen control over colony sex ratio and male parentage in L. niger .