The value of oviposition timing, queen presence and kinship in a social insect.

ABSTRACT: Reproductive cooperation confers benefits, but simultaneously creates conflicts among cooperators. Queens in multi-queen colonies of ants share a nest and its resources, but reproductive competition among queens often results in unequal reproduction. Two mutually non-exclusive factors may produce such inequality in reproduction: worker intervention or queen traits. Workers may intervene by favouring some queens over others, owing to either kinship or queen signals. Queens may differ in their intrinsic fecundity at the onset of oviposition or in their timing of the onset of oviposition, leading to their unequal representation in the brood. Here, we test the role of queen kin value (relatedness) to workers, timing of the onset of oviposition and signals of presence by queens in determining t

SUBMITTER: Ozan M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3730595 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature