Genetic clusters and sex-biased gene flow in a unicolonial Formica ant.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Animal societies are diverse, ranging from small family-based groups to extraordinarily large social networks in which many unrelated individuals interact. At the extreme of this continuum, some ant species form unicolonial populations in which workers and queens can move among multiple interconnected nests without eliciting aggression. Although unicoloniality has been mostly studied in invasive ants, it also occurs in some native non-invasive species. Unicoloniality is commonly associated with very high queen number, which may result in levels of relatedness among nestmates being so low as to raise the question of the maintenance of altruism by kin selection in such systems. However, the actual relatedness among cooperating individuals critically depends on effective di

SUBMITTER: Holzer B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2670286 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature