Reproductive monopoly enforced by sterile police workers in a queenless ant

Abstract

In societies of totipotent insects, dyadic dominance interactions generate a hierarchy that often underlies an extreme reproductive skew. Subordinates remain infertile but can maximize their indirect fitness benefits through collective power (worker policing): interference with challenging high-rankers can prevent an untimely replacement of the reproductive. However, police workers only benefit if they favor individuals with high fertility. In the monogynous queenless ant Streblognathus peetersi, we used behavioral, physiological, and chemical methods to show that police workers have the primary role in the selection of the reproductive, and that they probably use reliable information about fertility encoded in the cuticular hydrocarbons to make their decision. We successfully decreased an alpha’s fertility by using a hormonal treatment (Pyriproxyfen, a juvenile hormone analogue), and she was always removed from the hierarchy by police workers. In the preceding days, one of the high-rankers became aggressive, although her interactions were not directed at the treated alpha. All treated alphas (n ¼ 10) remained aggressive but ended up immobilized by low-ranking workers after a median time of 11.5 days. By then, the challenging high ranker exhibited dominance behaviors typical of the alpha rank. In parallel, the cuticular profile of the treated alpha exhibited predictable and opposite modifications to that of the challenger’s. This is the first study that uncouples dominance and fertility in a social insect: it gives a better understanding of the crucial role of sterile helpers in the control of reproductive skew in animal societies. Key words: cuticular hydrocarbons, fertility signal, gamergate, juvenile hormone, Ponerinae, reproductive skew, worker policing. [Behav Ecol 15:970–975 (2004)]