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21.
Cremer S D'Ettorre P Drijfhout FP Sledge MF Turillazzi S Heinze J 《Die Naturwissenschaften》2008,95(11):1101-1105
Winged and wingless males coexist in the ant Cardiocondyla obscurior. Wingless (“ergatoid”) males never leave their maternal colony and fight remorselessly among each other for the access to
emerging females. The peaceful winged males disperse after about 10 days, but beforehand also mate in the nest. In the first
5 days of their life, winged males perform a chemical female mimicry that protects them against attack and even makes them
sexually attractive to ergatoid males. When older, the chemical profile of winged males no longer matches that of virgin females;
nevertheless, they are still tolerated, which so far has been puzzling. Contrasting this general pattern, we have identified
a single aberrant colony in which all winged males were attacked and killed by the ergatoid males. A comparative analysis
of the morphology and chemical profile of these untypical attacked winged males and the tolerated males from several normal
colonies revealed that normal old males are still performing some chemical mimicry to the virgin queens, though less perfect
than in their young ages. The anomalous attacked winged males, on the other hand, had a very different odour to the females.
Our study thus exemplifies that the analysis of rare malfunctioning can add valuable insight on functioning under normal conditions
and allows the conclusion that older winged males from normal colonies of the ant C. obscurior are guarded through an imperfect chemical female mimicry, still close enough to protect against attacks by the wingless fighters
yet dissimilar enough not to elicit their sexual interest. 相似文献
22.
Mating behaviors of ants fall into two categories: female calling, in which a female alate releases pheromones that attract
males, and male swarming, in which large male aggregations attract females. Female calling is common in species with queens
that return to their natal nest to found colonies dependently after mating, while male swarming is common in species with
queens that disperse to found independently. In some species that display both founding strategies, a queen-size polymorphism
has evolved in which dependent-founding queens are smaller than independent-founding queens. Dependent founding is likely
difficult if gynes (virgin queens) are mating in distant swarms. Therefore, a queen may adopt one or the other mating strategy
based on its size and founding behavior. We investigated mating behaviors in the queen-polymorphic ant, Temnothorax longispinosus. Observations in laboratory mating arenas indicated that small gynes exhibited significantly lower flight activity than large
gynes. Both forms mated in male swarms, and neither form exhibited female calling. The reduced flight activity of the small
morph may facilitate returning to the natal nest after mating, provided the mating swarm is located nearby. Therefore, alternative
colony-founding behaviors may be possible without the evolution of female-calling behavior; however, the reduced flight activity
of small morphs may require that mating swarms are not distant from the natal nest. 相似文献