Patterns of male parentage in the fungus-growing ants

Abstract

Ant queens from eight species, covering three genera of lower and two genera of higher attine ants, have exclusively or predominantly single mating. The ensuing full-sib colonies thus have a strong potential reproductive conflict between the queen and the workers over male production. This is because, all other things being equal, relatedness incentives should favour traits expressed in both workers and the queen to monopolise the production of the colony's male offspring. Microsatellite genotyping of males from these attine species shows that workers in queenless colonies are able to produce males, but that no worker-produced males were found in queenright colonies. Our results suggest that worker reproduction is rare or even absent in colonies with a fertile queen. This indicates that either the queen directly prevents the workers from raising their own sons, or that worker reproduction is absent in the presence of a fertile queen due to high ergonomic costs of this behaviour.