Prior experience with eggs laid by non-nestmate queens induces egg acceptance errors in ant workers |
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Authors: | Heikki Helanterä Stephen J. Martin Francis L. W. Ratnieks |
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Affiliation: | (1) Laboratory of Apiculture and Social Insects, Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, University of Sheffield, Western Bank, S10 2TN, UK |
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Abstract: | We studied the effect of prior experience to eggs laid by nestmate and non-nestmate queens on the acceptance of queen-laid eggs by worker wood ants, Formica fusca. We transferred eggs from a non-nestmate queen into colonies during early spring, when their own queen was recommencing egg laying. A few weeks later, workers from these “experienced” colonies accepted eggs of both familiar (44% acceptance) and unfamiliar (40%) non-nestmate queens much more than workers from control colonies (2%) that had only had previous contact with their own queen’s eggs. Thus, prior exposure to eggs laid by a non-nestmate queen induces much greater acceptance of all non-nestmate queen-laid eggs. Mechanistically, we hypothesize that exposure to eggs from several queens may increase acceptance by causing a highly permissive acceptance threshold of non-nestmate queen-laid eggs rather than by widening the template for acceptable queen-laid eggs. These novel results show that egg-discrimination behaviour in F. fusca is flexible and that workers respond to the diversity of eggs experienced in their colony. |
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Keywords: | Social insects Formica fusca Nestmate recognition Acceptance threshold Recognition template Social parasitism |
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