TY - JOUR

T1 - Six weeks in the life of a reproducing army ant colony

T2 - Male parentage and colony behaviour

AU - Kronauer, D. J.C.

AU - Ponce, E. R.Rodríguez

AU - Lattke, J. E.

AU - Boomsma, J. J.

N1 - Funding Information: We thank the staff at Rancho Grande, especially Carlos Laucho and Juan García for hosting DJCK and ERRP, the staff of the Museo del Instituto de Zoología Agrícola in Maracay for their hospitality and for permission to work at Rancho Grande, and the many friends in Venezuela for their help. We are particularly grateful to Carl Rettenmeyer for sharing his extensive expertise on army ants and for detailed comments on the manuscript. This study was supported by grants from the Danish Research Training Council to DJCK and the Danish National Research Foundation to JJB.

PY - 2007/5

Y1 - 2007/5

N2 - The army ant Eciton burchellii is one of the most conspicuous ant species in New World tropical forests, but studies of colony life histories have been hampered by the nomadic lifestyle of these ants, which alternate between a nomadic phase when the colony relocates frequently, and a statary phase when the colony remains at a fixed site. Here we report on a colony from Venezuela that we studied continuously for six weeks, from the time that the queen produced a reproductive brood until the adult reproductives emerged and the colony entered the next cycle. Our findings support the contention that reproductive larvae develop faster than worker larvae, and that the nomadic phases of colonies with reproductive broods are significantly shorter than those of colonies with worker broods. This strongly suggests that the onset of pupation is linked to the onset of the statary phase. We used microsatellite genotyping to accurately identify male and queen larvae and we describe how they can be distinguished morphologically. Using the same genetic markers, we determined the parentage of 81 males produced by this colony. Only one of the males had a genotype that could not be directly derived from the observed queen genotype, but this mismatch is most probably due to a single mutation at one of the microsatellite loci, rather than this male being a worker son. We therefore conclude that this colony provides no evidence that workers lay eggs that develop into adult males in the presence of the queen, confirming the results of an earlier study on male parentage in an Old World army ant.

AB - The army ant Eciton burchellii is one of the most conspicuous ant species in New World tropical forests, but studies of colony life histories have been hampered by the nomadic lifestyle of these ants, which alternate between a nomadic phase when the colony relocates frequently, and a statary phase when the colony remains at a fixed site. Here we report on a colony from Venezuela that we studied continuously for six weeks, from the time that the queen produced a reproductive brood until the adult reproductives emerged and the colony entered the next cycle. Our findings support the contention that reproductive larvae develop faster than worker larvae, and that the nomadic phases of colonies with reproductive broods are significantly shorter than those of colonies with worker broods. This strongly suggests that the onset of pupation is linked to the onset of the statary phase. We used microsatellite genotyping to accurately identify male and queen larvae and we describe how they can be distinguished morphologically. Using the same genetic markers, we determined the parentage of 81 males produced by this colony. Only one of the males had a genotype that could not be directly derived from the observed queen genotype, but this mismatch is most probably due to a single mutation at one of the microsatellite loci, rather than this male being a worker son. We therefore conclude that this colony provides no evidence that workers lay eggs that develop into adult males in the presence of the queen, confirming the results of an earlier study on male parentage in an Old World army ant.

KW - Colony fission

KW - Eciton burchellii

KW - Nomadism

KW - Reproductive brood

KW - Worker sterility

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=34248190883&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/s00040-007-0919-8

DO - 10.1007/s00040-007-0919-8

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:34248190883

VL - 54

SP - 118

EP - 123

JO - Insectes Sociaux

JF - Insectes Sociaux

SN - 0020-1812

IS - 2

ER -