Camponotus fellah queens are singly mated

Abstract

The ant Camponotus fellah has been used in several behavioral and life history studies. An important factor that affects the genetic structure and division of labour within a colony is whether queens are singly or multiply mated. To determine whether queens are singly mated in C. fellah, as is the case in some other Camponotus species, we developed nine polymorphic microsatellite markers and sequenced 16 workers each from 20 colonies at six loci. Data in all colonies were compatible with queen monoandry. All the workers of one of the colonies had identical genotypes suggesting that they were clonally produced or that the queen was inbred. We, therefore, genotyped the mother queen as well as 31 more workers of the same colony at the same six loci plus the three remaining loci. These data revealed that the queen was homozygous at eight of the nine loci and that she mated with a male having a shared allele at all but one of the loci. Thus, the queen was apparently not only inbred but also probably mated with a brother.