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Hi, just wondered if anybody else spotted this small piece from the latest (May) issue of "Focus" science magazine, in the Agenda section at the start (latest news on various science), there's a small piece as follows;
Queen's Rule!
In an ant colony there's no denying who's boss. While the queen lays eggs, the rest of the workers don't reproduce, and now we know why.
An internation team of scientists, including chemical ecologists from Keele University, discovered that queens coat their eggs with a pheremone that prevents workers from laying their own eggs. When the scientists set up colonies with no queen, the workers began to lay their own eggs - but stopped doing so when queen-laid eggs were added.
That was all the short piece said.
I wondered if anybody had anything to add to this information? What species do this? What do the workers mate with/how do the workers get fertilised - I thought most species only mated in flight once a year with the "rare" flying male ants?
Anybody know anything else on this subject/have any thoughts on this?
Hello Azzer!
The workers can lay eggs but they didn´t copulate with a manikin. Thus they only can lay eggs without adding sperm, so the egg will only become a manakin and no worker or queen (therefore you need a fertilized egg!!).
The biological reason belongs to the Haplodiploidie (hope this is also the englisch word?!?!)
I forgot which kind of specie they analyse but I think that they assigned this results to all ant species.
Hello Azzer,
Workers can only lay haploid eggs, containing a single set chromosomes, whereas queens lay diploid eggs, one set of chromosomes being from the a male with which she mated.
Haploids eggs are invariably male-determined.
Donisthorpe reported that haploid worker-determined eggs could also be produced in various species he observed. The current thinking is against this, although it shouldn't be dismissed out of hand, as he was a myrmecologist of the highest order. However, I don't think worker-laid worker-determined eggs have been reported since.
It is possible that the workers he observed were internally gynaecoid but externally normal, although I don't think he dissected any.
Haplodiploidie certainly isn't an English I've ever heard!
Haplodiploidie isnt quite right and i cant remember the correct phrase but it is near enough for me to know what your talking about. I find the genetic side of social insect very interesting. Its strange how workers are more closely related to each other than they would be to their own offspring. I think thats right... i get confused lol.