Leaf Cutting Ant Forum

Soo.... here it is.
When we were making Planet Ant, Life Inside the Colony, we tracked ants and carried out DNA assays to establish relatedness. And we discovered a bombshell!
Queens mate with several males during their nuptial flight. That means when they lay eggs the offspring are all related to their mother but only some share the same father. It turns out that ants that share the same father stick together!!! In fungus gardens there tends to be ants who all share the same father. And soldiers that patrol around that area of the nest also share the same father which means they are only guarding the ants that are closest related to them. Eggs are carried to that part of the nest by ants that are closest related also. So although this is a single ants nest, within this there are separate families living. Now I don't know about you but that blows my mind apart!!

That really blew my mind when you told me that, a uestion that was put to me was what happens at the beginning then? I guess they co parent until numbers allow sectors to begin?

Wow I never new that's amazing so does that mean it carrys more down the line like tho

deansie26 wrote:That really blew my mind when you told me that, a uestion that was put to me was what happens at the beginning then? I guess they co parent until numbers allow sectors to begin?

Its basically all about ensuring that you pass the most proportion of your genes on to the next generation. If any of us were not able to reproduce it doesn't mean our genes do not get passed on provided we have brothers or sisters who can breed or if our parent(s) can breed. If we want to make sure our genes are passed on in these circumstances the best way to do this would be to make sure our closest relative survives to breed. A queen that has mated with several males is related to every sterile worker in the colony. But those that share the same father are closer related to each other. So initially they have the best chance of their genes surviving by working together to make sure the queen survives and then, after the colony is big enough that this risk is reduced, they can further enhance their own genetic legacy by promoting their genetic line and expending energy on those most closely related to them. It is really interesting, for me, because this behaviour goes on without any indication of what drives it until we start checking the relatedness and then a behaviour which is very sophisticated, comes to light.

That is amazing. I read The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins and he uses ants in the book to illustrate just this sort of sibling relationship. He only really discussed ants in general as examples of eusocial insects but this is like another level of sophistication.

I'd love to hear Richard Dawkin's explanation of how this comes about. Fascinating.

My pal Ricky D normally leaves this complicated stuff to me.....

Just joking, don't know him! But my son Calum is at Oxford Uni and Prof Dawkins cycled past him the other day. Quite surreal.