Queen control of sex ratio in fire ants. Academic Article

abstract

• The haplodiploid sex-determination system of ants gives rise to conflict between queens and workers over colony sex ratios, and the female-biased allocation ratios seen in many species suggest that workers often prevail in this conflict. We exchanged queens between male- and female-specialist colonies of the fire ant Solenopsis invicta. These exchanges quickly reversed the sex-ratio biases of adopting colonies. The sex ratio of queen-laid eggs differed strongly between male- and female-specialist colonies. These findings suggest that queens can force workers to raise male sexuals by limiting the number of female brood and help to explain why sex investment ratios lie between the queen and worker equilibria in this and many other ant species.

authors

• Vargo, Edward

published proceedings

• Science

altmetric score

• 4

author list (cited authors)

• Passera, L., Aron, S., Vargo, E. L., & Keller, L.

citation count

• 87

complete list of authors

• Passera, L||Aron, S||Vargo, EL||Keller, L

publication date

• August 2001

publisher

• American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)  Publisher

published in

• Science  Journal

keywords

• Animals
• Ants
• Behavior, Animal
• Female
• Male
• Models, Biological
• Oviposition
• Ovum
• Reproduction
• Sex Determination Processes
• Sex Ratio
• Social Behavior
• Zygote

PubMed Central ID

• 11509728

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

• 10.1126/science.1062076

start page

• 1308

end page

• 1310

volume

• 293

issue

• 5533

URL

• http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1062076