title: Recognition in ants: social origin matters.
abstract: The ability of group members to discriminate against foreigners is a keystone in the evolution of sociality. In social insects, colony social structure (number of queens) is generally thought to influence abilities of resident workers to discriminate between nestmates and non-nestmates. However, whether social origin of introduced individuals has an effect on their acceptance in conspecific colonies remains poorly explored. Using egg-acceptance bioassays, we tested the influence of social origin of queen-laid eggs on their acceptance by foreign workers in the ant Formica selysi. We showed that workers from both single- and multiple-queen colonies discriminated against foreign eggs from single-queen colonies, whereas they surprisingly accepted foreign eggs from multiple-queen colonies. Chemical analyses then demonstrated that social origins of eggs and workers could be discriminated on the basis of their chemical profiles, a signal generally involved in nestmate discrimination. These findings provide the first evidence in social insects that social origins of eggs interfere with nestmate discrimination and are encoded by chemical signatures.
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland. joel.meunier@unibas.ch
authors.forename: Joël
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Meunier
authors.forename: Olivier
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Delémont
authors.forename: Christophe
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lucas
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001000:Ants / Q000502:physiology*; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D005260:Female; D008297:Male; D010063:Ovum; D012919:Social Behavior