IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0004718.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Ant Queen Egg-Marking Signals: Matching Deceptive Laboratory Simplicity with Natural Complexity

Author

Listed:
  • Jelle S van Zweden
  • Jürgen Heinze
  • Jacobus J Boomsma
  • Patrizia d'Ettorre

Abstract

Background: Experiments under controlled laboratory conditions can produce decisive evidence for testing biological hypotheses, provided they are representative of the more complex natural conditions. However, whether this requirement is fulfilled is seldom tested explicitly. Here we provide a lab/field comparison to investigate the identity of an egg-marking signal of ant queens. Our study was based on ant workers resolving conflict over male production by destroying each other's eggs, but leaving queen eggs unharmed. For this, the workers need a proximate cue to discriminate between the two egg types. Earlier correlative evidence indicated that, in the ant Pachycondyla inversa, the hydrocarbon 3,11-dimethylheptacosane (3,11-diMeC27) is more abundant on the surface of queen-laid eggs. Methodology: We first tested the hypothesis that 3,11-diMeC27 functions as a queen egg-marking pheromone using laboratory-maintained colonies. We treated worker-laid eggs with synthetic 3,11-diMeC27 and found that they were significantly more accepted than sham-treated worker-laid eggs. However, we repeated the experiment with freshly collected field colonies and observed no effect of treating worker-laid eggs with 3,11-diMeC27, showing that this compound by itself is not the natural queen egg-marking pheromone. We subsequently investigated the overall differences of entire chemical profiles of eggs, and found that queen-laid eggs in field colonies are more distinct from worker-laid eggs than in lab colonies, have more variation in profiles, and have an excess of longer-chain hydrocarbons. Conclusions: Our results suggest that queen egg-marking signals are significantly affected by transfer to the laboratory, and that this change is possibly connected to reduced queen fertility as predicted by honest signaling theory. This change is reflected in the worker egg policing response under field and laboratory conditions.

Suggested Citation

  • Jelle S van Zweden & Jürgen Heinze & Jacobus J Boomsma & Patrizia d'Ettorre, 2009. "Ant Queen Egg-Marking Signals: Matching Deceptive Laboratory Simplicity with Natural Complexity," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 4(3), pages 1-7, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0004718
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0004718
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0004718
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0004718&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0004718?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Elizabeth A. Tibbetts & James Dale, 2004. "A socially enforced signal of quality in a paper wasp," Nature, Nature, vol. 432(7014), pages 218-222, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Elizabeth A Hobson & Simon DeDeo, 2015. "Social Feedback and the Emergence of Rank in Animal Society," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(9), pages 1-20, September.
    2. Adrian G Dyer & Quoc C Vuong, 2008. "Insect Brains Use Image Interpolation Mechanisms to Recognise Rotated Objects," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 3(12), pages 1-4, December.
    3. Anthony C. Little & Vít Třebický & Jan Havlíček & S. Craig Roberts & Karel Kleisner, 2015. "Editor's choice Human perception of fighting ability: facial cues predict winners and losers in mixed martial arts fights," Behavioral Ecology, International Society for Behavioral Ecology, vol. 26(6), pages 1470-1475.
    4. Vincent Dietemann & Huo-Qing Zheng & Colleen Hepburn & H Randall Hepburn & Shui-Hua Jin & Robin M Crewe & Sarah E Radloff & Fu-Liang Hu & Christian W W Pirk, 2008. "Self Assessment in Insects: Honeybee Queens Know Their Own Strength," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 3(1), pages 1-5, January.
    5. Sergio Nolazco & Kaspar Delhey & Shinichi Nakagawa & Anne Peters, 2022. "Ornaments are equally informative in male and female birds," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-10, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0004718. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.