Colony Structure and Queen-Worker Conflict in Social Insects

对于一些昆虫社会来说，一个群体可以由几个离散的筑巢单位组成。这种群体分裂或一夫多妻制的现象产生了不同的巢亚单位，主要在于它们是否包含一个蚁后。由于工蜂和它们的蚁后在如何分配生殖能量方面存在冲突，多配偶群体代表了研究争吵家庭内部冲突与合作的自然系统。此外，多配偶群体为研究选择水平提供了一个可处理的生态系统。蚁群是季节性多妻制的：春天，一个蚁群在地面上作为一个单位出现，但随后就分裂了。巢亚单位在夏季是功能独立的，但在秋季重新合并过冬。先前的研究表明，工蜂可以利用这一系统，使繁殖后代偏向于自己的利益，而远离母蜂的利益。本研究将对该物种的三个种群进行种群结构和生殖分配的研究；上下文分析将使我们能够区分局部筑巢单位和整个群体的选择。将进行实地试验，以评估生态参数对该物种的季节性一夫多妻、生殖分配和选择水平的影响。这项研究将为社会行为的进化机制提供重要的见解。此外，这个项目虽然主要是基础研究，但可能对控制有害的蚂蚁物种有影响，这些物种是出了名的一夫多妻制。

For some insect societies a colony can comprise several discrete nesting units. This phenomenon of colony fractionation, or polydomy, produces nest subunits that can differ primarily in whether or not they contain a queen. Since workers and their mother queen are in conflict over how reproductive energy should be allocated polydomous colonies represent natural systems for studying conflict and cooperation within the squabbling family. Furthermore, polydomous colonies represent a tractable ecological system for studying levels of selection. Colonies of the ant species Myrmica punctiventris are seasonally polydomous: in spring a colony emerges aboveground as a unit, but then fractionates. Nest subunits are functionally autonomous during the summer months, but re-coalesce in fall for overwintering. Previous work has shown that workers can exploit this system to bias reproductive broods towards their own interests and away from the interests of their mother queen. The proposed research will characterize colony structure and reproductive allocation for three populations of this species; contextual analysis will allow us to distinguish selection on the local nesting unit versus on the entire colony. A field experiment will be carried out to assess the impact of ecological parameters for seasonal polydomy, reproductive allocation, and levels of selection in this species. The research will provide considerable insight to the evolutionary mechanics of social behavior. Furthermore this project, while primarily basic research, may have implications for control of pest ant species, which are notoriously polydomous.