The queens in colonies of social bugs, equivalent to ants, bees, and wasps, are thought-about the veritable embodiment of specialization within the animal kingdom. The widespread notion is that the queen’s solely activity is to put eggs — and that this attribute is an inherent trait, not influenced by exterior components. In distinction, latest analysis undertaken at Johannes Gutenberg College Mainz (JGU) has demonstrated that in sure ant colonies the social atmosphere can play a vital function in shaping the behavioral specialization of the queens. “With regard to the ant species we studied, it’s social components that management whether or not queens change into specialised or not. Our findings problem the broadly accepted notion of social insect queens as inherently specialised egg-laying machines,” acknowledged Dr. Romain Libbrecht.
The analysis was performed by the Copy, Diet, and Conduct in Insect Societies group at JGU underneath the supervision of Dr. Romain Libbrecht, an evolutionary biologist. The corresponding paper has just lately been printed in Useful Ecology. Dr. Romain Libbrecht presently works on the Centre Nationwide de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) within the Insect Biology Analysis Institute of the College of Excursions.
Idea of insect societies as superorganisms consisting of specialised people
It’s typically assumed that social insect colonies encompass queens that monopolize replica and sterile employees liable for all non-reproduction-related duties, such because the care of the brood, i.e., eggs and larvae. Libbrecht’s crew now questioned this fundamental assumption. They targeted on ant species the place the queens discovered new colonies alone and with out the assistance of employees. “Curiously, these founding queens usually are not but specialised by way of their habits at this stage of their lives,” Libbrecht identified. “They themselves assume all duties within the nest, equivalent to brood care, to make sure profitable manufacturing of the primary era of employees.”
Of their experiments, Libbrecht’s group studied the black backyard ant Lasius niger that’s native to Germany. They discovered the social atmosphere to be a core think about figuring out the behavioral specialization of founding queens. “The introduction of employees within the nests of founding queens suppressed the pure predisposition of the queens to take care of their brood themselves. And, conversely, once we remoted queens specialised in egg-laying from their employees, they quickly reverted to the brood care habits noticed within the case of founding queens, even after a few years of specialization.”
Revision of the accepted view of the division of labor in insect societies
Libbrecht emphasised that the habits noticed throughout the examine challenges the normal view of social insect queens as being intrinsically specialised in egg manufacturing. As a substitute, the findings display that the presence of employees not solely triggers the egg-laying specialization of queens but additionally actively maintains it in established colonies. The invention of such social management of queen specialization might reshape our understanding of the functioning of insect societies and their division of labor.
Romain Libbrecht was head of the Copy, Diet, and Conduct in Insect Societies group on the Institute of Organismic and Molecular Evolution (IOME) at Johannes Gutenberg College Mainz from 2016 to 2022. Since 2023, he has been a researcher on the Insect Biology Analysis Institute on the CNRS of the College of Excursions. He’s significantly all in favour of analyzing how organisms alter their replica, physiology, and habits in response to environmental circumstances.
