Relatedness,recognition errors,and colony fusion in the termite <Emphasis Type="Italic">Nasutitermes corniger</Emphasis> |
| |
Authors: | Eldridge S Adams Lynn Atkinson Mark S Bulmer |
| |
Institution: | (1) Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269, USA;(2) Present address: Department of Biology, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115, USA |
| |
Abstract: | Loss of aggression between social groups can have far-reaching effects on the structure of societies and populations. We tested
whether variation in the genetic structure of colonies of the termite Nasutitermes corniger affects the probability of aggression toward non-nestmates and the ability of unrelated colonies to fuse. We determined the
genotypes of workers and soldiers from 120 colonies at seven polymorphic microsatellite loci. Twenty-seven colonies contained
offspring of multiple founding queens or kings, yielding an average within-colony relatedness of 0.33. Genotypes in the remaining
93 colonies were consistent with reproduction by a single queen and king or their progeny, with an average within-colony relatedness
of 0.51. In standardized assays, the probability of aggression between workers and soldiers from different colonies was an
increasing function of within-colony relatedness. The probability of aggression was not affected significantly by the degree
of relatedness between colonies, which was near zero in all cases, or by whether the colonies were neighbors. To test whether
these assays of aggression predict the potential for colony fusion in the field, we transplanted selected nests to new locations.
Workers and soldiers from colonies that were mutually tolerant in laboratory assays joined their nests without fighting, but
workers and soldiers that were mutually aggressive in the assays initiated massive battles. These results suggest that the
presence of multiple unrelated queens or kings promotes recognition errors, which can lead to the formation of more complex
colony structures. |
| |
Keywords: | Aggression Colony fusion Nasutitermes corniger Nestmate recognition Supercolonies |
本文献已被 SpringerLink 等数据库收录! |
|