Intra-colony venom diversity contributes to maintaining eusociality in a cooperatively breeding ant.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Eusociality is widely considered to evolve through kin selection, where the reproductive success of an individual's close relative is favored at the expense of its own. High genetic relatedness is thus considered a prerequisite for eusociality. While ants are textbook examples of eusocial animals, not all ants form colonies of closely related individuals. One such example is the ectatommine ant Rhytidoponera metallica, which predominantly forms queen-less colonies that have such a low intra-colony relatedness that they have been proposed to represent a transient, unstable form of eusociality. However, R. metallica is among the most abundant and widespread ants on the Australian continent. This apparent contradiction provides an example of how inclusive fitness may not by

SUBMITTER: Robinson SD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9827630 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature