Parasites, Pathogens, and Polyandry in Social Insects

Kraus,; Page,

doi:10.2307/2463424

Cited by 19 publications

(25 citation statements)

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“…My finding little support for increased intra-colonial genetic diversity having any effect on estimators of colony environment is consistent with previous work by myself and collaborators on L. niger showing that multiple-paternity colonies did not exhibit a better reproductive performance on average, and did not have any certain survival advantage compared to single-paternity colonies (Fjerdingstad et al 2003). Lack of benefits of increased genetic diversity have also been found in several other studies (Page et al 1995;Fuchs et al 1996;Kraus and Page 1998;Neumann and Moritz 2000;review by Crozier and Fjerdingstad 2001) though support for the hypothesis that high intra-colonial genetic diversity may increase colony performance has been found for honeybees (in some studies), Bombus terrestris bumble bees, and Pogonomyrmex harvester ants (e.g. Schmid-Hempel 1998;Cole and Wiernasz 1999;Baer andSchmid-Hempel 2001-but see Fjerdingstad andKeller 2000;Oldroyd et al 1992;Fuchs and Schade 1994;Crozier and Fjerdingstad 2001;Tarpy 2003) (see also Bourke and Franks 1995;Boomsma and Ratnieks 1996;Crozier and Pamilo 1996).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

“…The causes for this variation in finding support or lack of support for benefits of high intra-colonial genetic diversity in social insects have not yet been established (Fjerdingstad et al 2003; see also Kraus and Page 1998;Sherman et al 1998), but genuine differences among different species seem to exist (Fjerdingstad et al 2003). It is possible that multiple mating by queens is governed by different selective factors in species with a moderate number of mates per queen (as, for example, L. niger) than in species with very many mates per queen (e.g.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Multiple paternity and colony homeostasis in Lasius niger ants

Fjerdingstad

2004

Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology

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Multiple mating by social insect queens is a common phenomenon despite likely imposing substantial costs on queens. Mating with several males could be adaptive if a more genetically diverse worker force is better able to always handle any task sufficiently well, leading to a higher colony homeostasis. If multiplepaternity colonies are more homeostatic, then I propose that they may constitute less stressful rearing environments for developing sexuals. The effective stress levels experienced by developing males and queens may, however, also depend on colony productivity and sexratio preferences. I tested these hypotheses in the ant Lasius niger by examining whether the fluctuating asymmetry, means and coefficients of variation of a set of phenotypic traits in males and new queens co-varied with the effective number of patrilines per colony, colony productivity or sex ratio. Little support was found that the level of intra-colonial genetic diversity affects the variation of phenotype in sexuals. In 1 out of 2 years, however, females from colonies with high effective patriline numbers were heavier relative to their head width than were females from colonies with few patrilines. Support was found for the hypothesis that colonies with more resources may invest more in individual sexuals, and tendencies suggested that sexuals may receive better treatment when they belong to the majority sex of their colony.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multiple paternity and colony homeostasis in Lasius niger ants

Fjerdingstad

2004

Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology

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“…Experimental manipulation of the number of mates per queen has been performed only in the honeybee and bumblebees. For the honeybee some studies have found a positive effect between mating frequency and colony performance (Oldroyd et al 1992;Fuchs and Schade 1994;Tarpy 2003), while others have found no effect (Page et al 1995;Fuchs et al 1996;Kraus and Page 1998;Neumann and Moritz 2000). In Bombus terrestris, colonies headed by queens mated with several unrelated males showed greater productivity than colonies headed by several related males (Baer andSchmid-Hempel 1999, 2000).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although theoretical advances have been considerable in the last decades, empirical tests of these hypotheses have frequently been negative, inconclusive, or inconsistent across species (Bourke and Franks 1995;Boomsma and Ratnieks 1996;Crozier and Pamilo 1996;Kraus and Page 1998;Schmid-Hempel 1998;Sherman et al 1998;Crozier and Fjerdingstad 2001;Fjerdingstad et al 2003;Tarpy 2003). Moreover, only few studies have experimentally manipulated the level of genetic diversity, and some of the best designed of these studies have been conducted in systems exhibiting no variability in queen mating under natural conditions (e.g., Baer and Schmid-Hempel 1999).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Relationships Between Phenotype, Mating Behavior, and Fitness of Queens in the Ant Lasius Niger

Fjerdingstad

Keller

2004

Evolution

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Abstract. Considerable attention has focused on why females of many species mate with several males. For social hymenopteran insects, efforts have primarily concentrated on determining whether multiple mating increases colony performance due to the increased genetic diversity. Most of these studies are correlative because it is difficult or impossible to experimentally mate queens in most species. Thus, the positive associations found between multiple paternity and colony fitness in some cases may not be due to direct effects of genetic diversity but could, in theory, arise from high-quality queens having more mates. Here we show that in the ant Lasius niger variation in the number of matings covaries with queen phenotype. Young queens that were heavier at the time of the mating flight were significantly more likely to mate with several males. As a result, heavier queens stored more sperm. The initial weight of queens was significantly associated with the probability of surviving mating flights during the two years of the study, with queens of intermediate weight having the highest across-year survival. Queen initial weight was also significantly and positively associated with the quantity of brood at the time of the first worker eclosion as well as colony productivity at the time of hibernation. By contrast, there was little evidence for a positive effect of the number of matings on colony performance when the effect of mate number and queen initial weight were considered simultaneously.

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“…Strong support for this hypothesis has been found in experimental studies of bumblebees (Liersch and Schmid-Hempel 1998;Schmid-Hempel 1999, 2001), honeybees (Palmer and Oldroyd 2003;Tarpy 2003), and leaf-cutting ants (Hughes and Boomsma 2004). However, the general importance of genetic diversity in improving disease resistance in wild colonies of social Hymenoptera remains debated (Kraus and Page 1998;Sherman et al 1998).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Experimental manipulation of colony genetic diversity had no effect on short-term task efficiency in the Argentine ant Linepithema humile

Rosset

Keller

Chapuisat

2005

Behav Ecol Sociobiol

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Genetic diversity might increase the performance of social groups by improving task efficiency or disease resistance, but direct experimental tests of these hypotheses are rare. We manipulated the level of genetic diversity in colonies of the Argentine ant Linepithema humile, and then recorded the short-term task efficiency of these experimental colonies. The efficiency of low and high genetic diversity colonies did not differ significantly for any of the following tasks: exploring a new territory, foraging, moving to a new nest site, or removing corpses. The tests were powerful enough to detect large effects, but may have failed to detect small differences. Indeed, observed effect sizes were generally small, except for the time to create a trail during nest emigration. In addition, genetic diversity had no statistically significant impact on the number of workers, males and females produced by the colony, but these tests had low power. Higher genetic diversity also did not result in lower variance in task efficiency and productivity. In contrast to genetic diversity, colony size was positively correlated with the efficiency at performing most tasks and with colony productivity. Altogether, these results suggest that genetic diversity does not strongly improve short-term task efficiency in L. humile, but that worker number is a key factor determining the success of this invasive species.

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Parasites, Pathogens, and Polyandry in Social Insects

Cited by 19 publications

References 0 publications

Multiple paternity and colony homeostasis in Lasius niger ants

Multiple paternity and colony homeostasis in Lasius niger ants

Relationships Between Phenotype, Mating Behavior, and Fitness of Queens in the Ant Lasius Niger

Experimental manipulation of colony genetic diversity had no effect on short-term task efficiency in the Argentine ant Linepithema humile

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