Gutenberg Open Science: Fecundity determines the outcome of founding queen associations in ants

Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://doi.org/10.25358/openscience-6338

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DC Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Teggers, Eva-Maria	-
dc.contributor.author	Deegener, Falk	-
dc.contributor.author	Libbrecht, Romain	-
dc.date.accessioned	2021-09-13T10:03:17Z	-
dc.date.available	2021-09-13T10:03:17Z	-
dc.date.issued	2021	-
dc.identifier.uri	https://openscience.ub.uni-mainz.de/handle/20.500.12030/6348	-
dc.description.abstract	Animal cooperation evolved because of its benefits to the cooperators. Pleometrosis in ants—the cooperation of queens to found a colony—benefits colony growth, but also incurs costs for some of the cooperators because only one queen usually survives the association. While several traits in queens influence queen survival, they tend to be confounded and it is unclear which factor specifically determines the outcome of pleometrosis. In this study, we used the ant Lasius niger to monitor offspring production in colonies founded by one or two queens. Then, we experimentally paired queens that differed in fecundity but not in size, and vice versa, to disentangle the effect of these factors on queen survival. Finally, we investigated how fecundity and size differed between queens depending on whether they were chosen as pleometrotic partners. Our results indicate that pleometrosis increased and accelerated worker production via a nutritional boost to the larvae. The most fecund queens more frequently survived the associations, even when controlling for size and worker parentage, and queens selected as pleometrotic partners were less fecund. Our results are consistent with fecundity being central to the onset and outcome of pleometrosis, a classic example of cooperation among unrelated animals.	en_GB
dc.language.iso	eng	de
dc.rights	CC BY	*
dc.rights.uri	https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/	*
dc.subject.ddc	570 Biowissenschaften	de_DE
dc.subject.ddc	570 Life sciences	en_GB
dc.subject.ddc	590 Tiere (Zoologie)	de_DE
dc.subject.ddc	590 Zoological sciences	en_GB
dc.title	Fecundity determines the outcome of founding queen associations in ants	en_GB
dc.type	Zeitschriftenaufsatz	de
dc.identifier.doi	http://doi.org/10.25358/openscience-6338	-
jgu.type.dinitype	article	en_GB
jgu.type.version	Published version	de
jgu.type.resource	Text	de
jgu.organisation.department	FB 10 Biologie	de
jgu.organisation.number	7970	-
jgu.organisation.name	Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz	-
jgu.rights.accessrights	openAccess	-
jgu.journal.title	Scientific reports	de
jgu.journal.volume	11	de
jgu.pages.alternative	2986	de
jgu.publisher.year	2021	-
jgu.publisher.name	Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature	de
jgu.publisher.place	London	de
jgu.publisher.uri	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-82559-9	de
jgu.publisher.issn	2045-2322	de
jgu.organisation.place	Mainz	-
jgu.subject.ddccode	570	de
jgu.subject.ddccode	590	de
jgu.publisher.doi	10.1038/s41598-021-82559-9
jgu.organisation.ror	https://ror.org/023b0x485
Appears in collections:	JGU-Publikationen

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