Queen-queen competition by precocious male production in multiqueen ant colonies

Arriving earlier in the breeding area than his rivals may be beneficial for a male when females mate only once or during a short time span. The timing of a male's entrance is usually determined by the male himself, e.g., through returning early from his winter quarters or through accelerated la...

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Main Authors:	Hashim, R., Heinze, J., Yamauchi, K., Ishida, Y.
Format:	Article
Published:	2006
Subjects:	QH301 Biology
Online Access:	http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982206023074 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982206023074

id	um-8300
recordtype	eprints
spelling	um-83002015-02-23T13:42:31Z Queen-queen competition by precocious male production in multiqueen ant colonies Hashim, R. Heinze, J. Yamauchi, K. Ishida, Y. QH301 Biology Arriving earlier in the breeding area than his rivals may be beneficial for a male when females mate only once or during a short time span. The timing of a male's entrance is usually determined by the male himself, e.g., through returning early from his winter quarters or through accelerated larval development [1-3]. Here, we document a surprisingly simple way of "first come, first served" in a species with local mate competition. In multiqueen colonies of a Cardiocondyla ant, mother queens make sure that their own sons are the first to monopolize mating with a large harem of female sexuals by producing extremely long-lived males early in colony life. Whereas queens in newly founded single-queen colonies started to produce male and female sexuals only several weeks after the eclosion of their first worker off spring, queens in multiqueen colonies precociously reared sons long before the first female sexuals and even before the emergence of their first workers. These early males killed all later emerging males in the nest and mated with all female sexuals subsequently produced. Our data document that the patterns of growth and productivity of insect colonies are surprisingly flexible and can be turned upside down under appropriate selection pressures. 2006 Article PeerReviewed http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982206023074 Hashim, R.; Heinze, J.; Yamauchi, K.; Ishida, Y. (2006) Queen-queen competition by precocious male production in multiqueen ant colonies. Current Biology <http://eprints.um.edu.my/view/publication/Current_Biology.html>, 16 (24). pp. 2424-2427. ISSN 0960-9822 http://eprints.um.edu.my/8300/
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Local University
institution	University Malaya
building	UM Research Repository
collection	Online Access
topic	QH301 Biology
spellingShingle	QH301 Biology Hashim, R. Heinze, J. Yamauchi, K. Ishida, Y. Queen-queen competition by precocious male production in multiqueen ant colonies
description	Arriving earlier in the breeding area than his rivals may be beneficial for a male when females mate only once or during a short time span. The timing of a male's entrance is usually determined by the male himself, e.g., through returning early from his winter quarters or through accelerated larval development [1-3]. Here, we document a surprisingly simple way of "first come, first served" in a species with local mate competition. In multiqueen colonies of a Cardiocondyla ant, mother queens make sure that their own sons are the first to monopolize mating with a large harem of female sexuals by producing extremely long-lived males early in colony life. Whereas queens in newly founded single-queen colonies started to produce male and female sexuals only several weeks after the eclosion of their first worker off spring, queens in multiqueen colonies precociously reared sons long before the first female sexuals and even before the emergence of their first workers. These early males killed all later emerging males in the nest and mated with all female sexuals subsequently produced. Our data document that the patterns of growth and productivity of insect colonies are surprisingly flexible and can be turned upside down under appropriate selection pressures.
format	Article
author	Hashim, R. Heinze, J. Yamauchi, K. Ishida, Y.
author_facet	Hashim, R. Heinze, J. Yamauchi, K. Ishida, Y.
author_sort	Hashim, R.
title	Queen-queen competition by precocious male production in multiqueen ant colonies
title_short	Queen-queen competition by precocious male production in multiqueen ant colonies
title_full	Queen-queen competition by precocious male production in multiqueen ant colonies
title_fullStr	Queen-queen competition by precocious male production in multiqueen ant colonies
title_full_unstemmed	Queen-queen competition by precocious male production in multiqueen ant colonies
title_sort	queen-queen competition by precocious male production in multiqueen ant colonies
publishDate	2006
url	http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982206023074 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982206023074
first_indexed	2018-09-06T05:33:26Z
last_indexed	2018-09-06T05:33:26Z
_version_	1610835041446789120

Queen-queen competition by precocious male production in multiqueen ant colonies

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