Ichinose Katsuya, Boulay Raphaël, Cerdá Xim, Lenoir Alain
IRBI, UMR CNRS 6035, Institut de Recherche de Biologie de l'Insecte, Université François Rabelais, Faculté des Sciences et Techniques, Parc de Grandmont, 37200 Tours, France.
Zoolog Sci. 2009 Oct;26(10):681-5. doi: 10.2108/zsj.26.681.
In social insects, colony fission is a particular mode of dispersal by which an adult colony splits into two or more independent nests. In the monogynous ant Aphaenogaster senilis, field data suggest that new queens may be produced in queenless daughter nests after nest relocation. Because workers do not fly, colony fission limits dispersal distance, leading young sister colonies to compete together and with the mother queen. In the present study we analysed the effects of queen loss and diet change on nestmate recognition. Queenright colonies were separated into two queenless and one queenright fragments. One queenless group received the same food as the queenright group, while the other queenless group received a different diet for 150 days. Recognition bioassays revealed that aggression between queenright and queenless former nestmates increased progressively until day 20, when they could no longer be reunited. Different diets also induced aggression between orphaned groups. Chemical analyses indicated that cuticular hydrocarbon profiles were already different between groups after 5 days. Overall, our results are in accordance with the graded model of nestmate recognition and suggest that the loss of the mother queen progressively leads to the independence of the related nests after fission. This may also allow queenless ants to merge again with their mother colony during a short time window after fission.
在群居昆虫中，群体分裂是一种特殊的扩散方式，成年群体通过这种方式分裂成两个或更多独立的巢穴。在单后制蚂蚁老年弓背蚁中，野外数据表明，在巢穴迁移后，无蚁后的子巢中可能会产生新的蚁后。由于工蚁不会飞行，群体分裂限制了扩散距离，导致年轻的姐妹群体相互竞争，并与蚁后竞争。在本研究中，我们分析了蚁后缺失和饮食变化对巢伴识别的影响。有蚁后的群体被分成两个无蚁后的群体和一个有蚁后的群体。一个无蚁后的群体接受与有蚁后的群体相同的食物，而另一个无蚁后的群体在150天内接受不同的饮食。识别生物测定表明，有蚁后的和无蚁后的原巢伴之间的攻击行为逐渐增加，直到第20天，此时它们无法再重新团聚。不同的饮食也会导致孤儿群体之间的攻击行为。化学分析表明，5天后不同群体之间的表皮碳氢化合物谱已经不同。总体而言，我们的结果符合巢伴识别的分级模型，并表明蚁后的缺失会逐渐导致分裂后相关巢穴的独立。这也可能使无蚁后的蚂蚁在分裂后的短时间内再次与它们的母群体合并。
