Discriminatory abilities of facultative slave-making ants and their slaves

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• 作者：T. Włodarczyk
• 关键词：Ants ; Nestmate recognition ; Slave ; making ; Social parasitism
• 刊名：Insectes Sociaux
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：November 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：63
• 期：4
• 页码：507-517
• 全文大小：1,099 KB
• 刊物类别：Biomedical and Life Sciences
• 刊物主题：Life Sciences
  Zoology
  
• 出版者：Birkh盲user Basel
• ISSN：1420-9098
• 卷排序：63

文摘

Intra-colony odor variability can disturb ants’ ability to discriminate against intruders. The evolutionary relevance of this phenomenon can be revealed by studies on colonies of slave-making ants in which the parasite, and not the host, is subject to selection pressures associated with living in a mixed colony. We examined how the European facultative slave-making species Formica sanguinea and its F. fusca slaves perform in discriminating ants from alien colonies. Results of behavioral assays showed that slave-maker ants respond with hostility to conspecific individuals from alien colonies but are relatively tolerant to alien slaves. Furthermore, the behavior of slaves indicated a limited ability to discriminate ants from alien parasitic colonies. The subdivision of colony fragments into mixed and species-separated groups demonstrated that contact with the parasite is necessary for F. fusca slaves to be re-accepted by former nestmates after a period of separation from the stock colony. The results presented in this paper are consistent with the following hypotheses: (1) F. sanguinea ants, as opposed to their slaves, are adapted to discriminate alien individuals in the conditions of odor variability found in a mixed-species colony, (2) the recognition of slaves by F. sanguinea ants involves a dedicated adaptive mechanism that prevents aggression toward them, (3) the odor of slaves is strongly influenced by the parasite with beneficial effect on the colony integrity.