Autoren:	Psalti, Marina N. Gohlke, Dustin Libbrecht, Romain
Titel:	Experimental increase of worker diversity benefits brood production in ants
Online-Publikationsdatum:	19-Mai-2022
Erscheinungsdatum:	2021
Sprache des Dokuments:	Englisch
Zusammenfassung/Abstract:	Background The reproductive division of labor of eusocial insects, whereby one or several queens monopolize reproduction, evolved in a context of high genetic relatedness. However, many extant eusocial species have developed strategies that decrease genetic relatedness in their colonies, suggesting some benefits of the increased diversity. Multiple studies support this hypothesis by showing positive correlations between genetic diversity and colony fitness, as well as finding effects of experimental manipulations of diversity on colony performance. However, alternative explanations could account for most of these reports, and the benefits of diversity on performance in eusocial insects still await validation. In this study, we experimentally increased worker diversity in small colonies of the ant Lasius niger while controlling for typical confounding factors. Results We found that experimental colonies composed of workers coming from three different source colonies produced more larvae and showed more variation in size compared to groups of workers coming from a single colony. Conclusions We propose that the benefits of increased diversity stemmed from an improved division of labor. Our study confirms that worker diversity enhances colony performance, thus providing a possible explanation for the evolution of multiply mated queens and multiple-queen colonies in many species of eusocial insects.
DDC-Sachgruppe:	570 Biowissenschaften 570 Life sciences
Veröffentlichende Institution:	Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
Organisationseinheit:	FB 10 Biologie
Veröffentlichungsort:	Mainz
ROR:	https://ror.org/023b0x485
DOI:	http://doi.org/10.25358/openscience-7002
Version:	Published version
Publikationstyp:	Zeitschriftenaufsatz
Nutzungsrechte:	CC BY
Informationen zu den Nutzungsrechten:	https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Zeitschrift:	BMC ecology and evolution 21
Seitenzahl oder Artikelnummer:	163
Verlag:	BioMed Central
Verlagsort:	London
Erscheinungsdatum:	2021
ISSN:	2730-7182
DOI der Originalveröffentlichung:	10.1186/s12862-021-01890-x
Enthalten in den Sammlungen:	JGU-Publikationen