Cordonnier Marion, Bachl Lena, Thiercelin Nicolas, Trindl Andreas, Heinze Jürgen, Bernadou Abel
Chair of Zoology and Evolutionary Biology University of Regensburg Regensburg Germany.
Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition Animale, Centre de Biologie Intégrative Université de Toulouse, CNRS, UPS Toulouse France.
Ecol Evol. 2025 May 26;15(5):e71133. doi: 10.1002/ece3.71133. eCollection 2025 May.
In eusocial insects, social parasitism-the exploitation of the host's brood care behavior for survival and reproduction-can occur either within or between species. Parasitic queens invade host nests and aggressively replace the resident queen. While the adoption of conspecific queens is a common feature of species with multiqueen colonies (polygyny), the origin of parasitic founding is not fully understood. Functionally monogynous ants, in which nestmate queens establish social and reproductive hierarchies through biting and antennal boxing, may provide a link between peaceful adoption and social parasitism. In this study, we investigated whether alien queens can usurp colonies of the functionally monogynous ant . Ovary dissection of queens from 33 nests showed that multiple queens with developed ovaries can occasionally co-occur in the same nest. Genetic analysis revealed frequent replacement of the dominant queens by relatives. Instead, alien queens rarely take over reproduction, suggesting a few occurrences of intraspecific social parasitism. However, the data suggest that alien queens without developed ovaries frequently invade nests without being eliminated. This suggests that alien queens are somehow prevented from reproducing and social parasitism is therefore limited in this species.
在群居性昆虫中，社会寄生现象——即利用宿主的育雏行为来生存和繁殖——可在种内或种间发生。寄生蚁后侵入宿主巢穴，并积极取代常驻蚁后。虽然接纳同种蚁后是具有多蚁后群体（多雌制）物种的一个常见特征，但寄生建巢的起源尚未完全明了。在功能上为单雌制的蚂蚁中，巢内蚁后通过撕咬和触角搏斗来建立社会和繁殖等级制度，这可能为和平接纳与社会寄生之间提供了一种联系。在本研究中，我们调查了外来蚁后是否能够篡夺功能上为单雌制蚂蚁的蚁群。对来自33个巢穴的蚁后的卵巢解剖显示，多个具有发育成熟卵巢的蚁后偶尔会共存于同一巢穴中。基因分析表明，优势蚁后经常被亲属取代。相反，外来蚁后很少接管繁殖，这表明种内社会寄生现象很少发生。然而，数据表明，卵巢未发育成熟的外来蚁后经常侵入巢穴且未被消灭。这表明外来蚁后在某种程度上被阻止繁殖，因此该物种中的社会寄生现象受到限制。
