title: Discriminatory abilities of facultative slave-making ants and their slaves.
abstract: Intra-colony odor variability can disturb ants' ability to discriminate against intruders. The evolutionary relevance of this phenomenon can be revealed by studies on colonies of slave-making ants in which the parasite, and not the host, is subject to selection pressures associated with living in a mixed colony. We examined how the European facultative slave-making speciesFormica sanguineaand itsF. fuscaslaves perform in discriminating ants from alien colonies. Results of behavioral assays showed that slave-maker ants respond with hostility to conspecific individuals from alien colonies but are relatively tolerant to alien slaves. Furthermore, the behavior of slaves indicated a limited ability to discriminate ants from alien parasitic colonies. The subdivision of colony fragments into mixed and species-separated groups demonstrated that contact with the parasite is necessary forF. fuscaslaves to be re-accepted by former nestmates after a period of separation from the stock colony. The results presented in this paper are consistent with the following hypotheses: (1)F. sanguineaants, as opposed to their slaves, are adapted to discriminate alien individuals in the conditions of odor variability found in a mixed-species colony, (2) the recognition of slaves byF. sanguineaants involves a dedicated adaptive mechanism that prevents aggression toward them, (3) the odor of slaves is strongly influenced by the parasite with beneficial effect on the colony integrity.
authors: Department of Invertebrate Zoology, University of Białystok, Ciołkowskiego St 1 J, 15-245 Białystok, Poland.
authors: T
authors: T
authors: Włodarczyk
keywords: Ants; Nestmate recognition; Slave-making; Social parasitism