Author： WILSON EDWARD O.
Publisher： Entomological Society of America
ISSN： 1938-2901
Source： Annals of the Entomological Society of America, Vol.67, Iss.5, 1974-09, pp. : 781-786
Disclaimer: Any content in publications that violate the sovereignty, the constitution or regulations of the PRC is not accepted or approved by CNPIEC.
Abstract
In colonies of the ant, Leptothorax curvispinosus Mayr, the number of eggs in the standing crop appears to increase principally with the number of queens, but the number of larvae, and hence the colony growth rate, is independent of the number of queens, depending instead primarily on the size of the worker population. Hence the average reproductive potential of individual queens falls off linearly with an increase in their number. On the other hand, the presence of supernumerary queens lengthens the survival time of colonies. The latter circumstance alone, if combined with a higher degree of genetic relatedness among coexisting queens, counteracts the lowered per-queen reproductive potential and could be sufficient to favor polygyny in natural selection.
Related content
Access to resources
Recommend
