“…Endoreduplication is often attributed to increasing cellular size, metabolism, and gene expression owing to the increasing availability of DNA templates for transcription (Bourdon et al, ; Claycomb, Benasutti, Bosco, Fenger, & Orr‐Weaver, ; Edgar et al, ; Galitski, Saldanha, Styles, Lander, & Fink, ; Nagl, ). In social hymenopterans, several studies have shown the intriguing linkage between caste specialization and endopolyploidy (Rangel, Strauss, Seedorf, Hjelmen, & Johnston, ; Scholes, Suarez, & Paige, ; Scholes, Suarez, Smith, Johnston, & Paige, ). Scholes et al () investigated the degree of polyploidy within and among castes of four ant species with worker polymorphism and observed variation in ploidy levels among workers with different body sizes.…”