1 Department of Biology, Section of Ecology, FI-20014 University of Turku, Finland.
J Insect Sci. 2013;13:115. doi: 10.1673/031.013.11501.
Body size in animals is affected by both genes and the environment (e.g., the amount of food resources). In ants, body size is related to several traits in an individual's physiology and life history. For example, a large queen may increase offspring production, thus increasing her overall fitness. In this study, whether sub-optimal environmental conditions affect the body size of queens of the red wood ant, Formica aquilonia Yarrow (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). The sizes (head width in mm) of virgin queens, i.e., gynes, originating from forest interiors (resource rich) and from commercial forest clear-cuts (resource poor) were measured. No differences in the body size of the queens from the two habitats were found. In addition, the within-nest variation in queen size was similar between habitat types. The results indicate that the body size variation of F. aquilonia queens is not sensitive to environmental variation, unlike F. aquilonia workers. The lack of environmental variation in queen size in F. aquilonia may be due to a strong selection in the past to monomorphic size in this obligately polygynous (multi-queened) species.
动物的体型大小受基因和环境（例如，食物资源的数量）的影响。在蚂蚁中，体型大小与个体生理和生活史的几个特征有关。例如，一个大的蚁后可能会增加后代的产量，从而提高她的整体适应性。在这项研究中，我们研究了亚最优环境条件是否会影响红林蚁（Formica aquilonia Yarrow）蚁后的体型大小。我们测量了来自森林内部（资源丰富）和商业森林皆伐区（资源匮乏）的处女蚁后（即生殖蚁）的头宽（mm）。结果发现，来自两种生境的蚁后的体型大小没有差异。此外，两种生境类型的巢内蚁后体型大小的变化相似。这些结果表明，红林蚁蚁后的体型大小变化对环境变化不敏感，不像红林蚁工蚁那样。在红林蚁中，蚁后体型大小没有环境变化可能是由于过去在这个强制性多态性（多后）物种中对单态体型的强烈选择。
