Queen adoption in the polygynous and polydomous ant, Leptothorax curvispinosus

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Abstract
Alate female reproductives of the facultatively polygynous and polydomous ant, Lepiothorax curuispinosus, were reared from field-collected nests, mated, and introduced into either their parental nests or alien conspecific nests. The 41 queens introduced into alien nests were usually attacked and rejected (97. 6%), but one queen was accepted after initial aggression. The 27 queens introduced into their parental nests received a variable response. Some were accepted without any apparent aggression (59. 3%), but others were strongly attacked and rejected (40. 7%). Sequential introductions of up to four queens into particular parental nests indicated that nests consistently either accept or reject their mated offspring. The presence or absence of resident queens in parental nests had no apparent influence on the acceptance of offspring queens. Nests that accepted queens had significantly fewer workers than those that did not, but this slight difference is unlikely to explain these dichotomous results and could be spurious. Dissections of the introduced queens revealed that 79. 0% were inseminated and 98. 3% had developing, yolked eggs in their ovarioles, but these variables had no apparent effect on acceptability. Similarly, the size of the introduced queens and the time that elapsed between mating and introduction had no apparent effect. The consistent response of parental nests in either accepting or rejecting their mated offspring indicates a mechanism of queen number regulation in this species that involves characteristics of the colony or nest rather than variability among offspring queens. This mechanism could be responsible for maintaining relatively low numbers of queens and high genetic relatedness in colonies (or individual nests) while promoting flexibility in colony reproduction by colony fission (“budding”) and the dispersal of young queens. This mechanism could also involve an important conflict of interest between parental colonies and their mated offspring and might contribute to the evolution of socially parasitic colony foundation strategies. Acceptance of mated offspring by their parental colonies might only occur during certain periods in colony development, depend on the level of genetic diversity within the colony (or nest), reflect the condition of the colony, nest, queen(s), brood, or local habitat, or result from a genetic polymorphism.

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