Search results for "Worker policing"
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Reproductive monopoly enforced by sterile police workers in a queenless ant
2004
In societies of totipotent insects, dyadic dominance interactions generate a hierarchy that often underlies an extreme reproductive skew. Subordinates remain infertile but can maximize their indirect fitness benefits through collective power (worker policing): interference with challenging high-rankers can prevent an untimely replacement of the reproductive. However, police workers only benefit if they favor individuals with high fertility. In the monogynous queenless ant Streblognathus peetersi, we used behavioral, physiological, and chemical methods to show that police workers have the primary role in the selection of the reproductive, and that they probably use reliable information about…
Gene expression patterns associated with caste and reproductive status in ants: worker-specific genes are more derived than queen-specific ones.
2013
Variation in gene expression leads to phenotypic diversity and plays a central role in caste differentiation of eusocial insect species. In social Hymenoptera, females with the same genetic background can develop into queens or workers, which are characterized by divergent morphologies, behaviours and lifespan. Moreover, many social insects exhibit behaviourally distinct worker castes, such as brood-tenders and foragers. Researchers have just started to explore which genes are differentially expressed to achieve this remarkable phenotypic plasticity. Although the queen is normally the only reproductive individual in the nest, following her removal, young brood-tending workers often develop …