Hölldobler, B. & Wilson, E. O. The number of queens: An important trait in ant evolution. Naturwissenschaften 64, 8–15 (1977).
Google Scholar
Maynard Smith, J. & Szathmáry, E. Major Transitions in Evolution (Oxford University Press, 1995).
Keller, L. Queen Number and Sociality in Insects (Oxford Science Publications, 1994).
Keller, L. Levels of Selection in Evolution (Princeton University Press, 1999).
Hughes, W. O. H., Oldroyd, B. P., Beekman, M. & Ratnieks, F. L. W. Ancestral monogamy shows kin selection is key to the evolution of eusociality. Science 320, 1213–1216 (2008).
Google Scholar
Boomsma, J. J. Lifetime monogamy and the evolution of eusociality. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B Biol. Sci. 364, 3191–3207 (2009).
Google Scholar
Hamilton, W. D. Altruism and related phenomena, mainly in social insects. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Syst. 3, 193–232 (1972).
Google Scholar
Borowiec, M. L. et al. Compositional heterogeneity and outgroup choice influence the internal phylogeny of the ants. Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. 134, 111–121 (2019).
Google Scholar
Hughes, W. O. H., Ratnieks, F. L. W. & Oldroyd, B. P. Multiple paternity or multiple queens: Two routes to greater intracolonial genetic diversity in the eusocial Hymenoptera. J. Evol. Biol. 21, 1090–1095 (2008).
Google Scholar
Wilson, E. O. The Insect Societies (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1971).
Bourke, A. F. G. & Franks, N. R. Social Evolution in Ants (Princeton University Press, 1995).
Giraud, T., Blatrix, R., Poteaux, C., Solignac, M. & Jaisson, P. High genetic relatedness among nestmate queens in the polygynous ponerine ant Gnamptogenys striatula in Brazil. Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 49, 128–134 (2001).
Google Scholar
Schmid-Hempel, P. & Crozier, R. H. Ployandry versus polygyny versus parasites. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. B Biol. Sci. 354, 507–515 (1999).
Google Scholar
Oldroyd, B. P. & Fewell, J. H. Genetic diversity promotes homeostasis in insect colonies. Trends Ecol. Evol. 22, 408–413 (2007).
Google Scholar
Hölldobler, B. & Wilson, E. O. The Superorganism: The Beauty, Elegance, and Strangeness of Insect Societies (W. W. Norton & Company, 2009).
Trunzer, B., Heinze, J. & Hölldobler, B. Cooperative colony founding and experimental primary polygyny in the ponerine ant Pachycondyla villosa. Insectes Soc. 45, 267–276 (1998).
Google Scholar
Rüppell, O. & Heinze, J. Alternative reproductive tactics in females: The case of size polymorphism in winged ant queens. Insectes Soc. 46, 6–17 (1999).
Google Scholar
Hughes, W. O. H. & Boomsma, J. J. Genetic royal cheats in leaf-cutting ant societies. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 105, 5150–5153 (2008).
Google Scholar
Hannonen, M. & Sundström, L. Worker nepotism among polygynous ants. Nature 421, 910 (2003).
Google Scholar
Pedersen, J. S. & Boomsma, J. J. Effect of habitat saturation on the number and turnover of queens in the polygynous ant, Myrmica sulcinodis. J. Evol. Biol. 12, 903–917 (1999).
Google Scholar
Rüppell, O., Strätz, M., Baier, B. & Heinze, J. Mitochondrial markers in the ant Leptothorax rugutulus reveal the population genetic consequences of philopatry at different hierarchial levels. Mol. Ecol. 12, 795–801 (2003).
Google Scholar
Rüppell, O., Heinze, J. & Hölldobler, B. Alternative reproductive tactics in the queen-size-dimorphic ant Leptothorax rugatulus (Emery) and their consequences for genetic population structure. Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 50, 189–197 (2001).
Google Scholar
Pamilo, P. Polyandry and allele frequency differences between the sexes in the ant Formica aquilonia. Heredity 70, 472–480 (1993).
Google Scholar
Qian, Z. Q. et al. Intraspecific support for the polygyny-vs.-polyandry hypothesis in the bulldog ant Myrmecia brevinoda. Mol. Ecol. 20, 3681–3691 (2011).
Google Scholar
Keller, L. & Reeve, H. K. Partitioning of reproduction in animal societies. Trends Ecol. Evol. 9, 98–102 (1994).
Google Scholar
Hölldobler, B. & Wilson, E. O. The Ants (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1990).
Google Scholar
Bartz, S. H. & Hölldobler, B. Colony founding in Myrmecocystus mimicus Wheeler (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) and the evolution of foundress associations. Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 10, 137–147 (1982).
Google Scholar
Rissing, S. W., Pollock, G. B., Higgins, M. R., Hagen, R. H. & Smith, D. R. Foraging specialization without relatedness or dominance among co-founding ant queens. Nature 338, 420–422 (1989).
Google Scholar
Boomsma, J. J., Huszár, D. B. & Pedersen, J. S. The evolution of multiqueen breeding in eusocial lineages with permanent physically differentiated castes. Anim. Behav. 92, 241–252 (2014).
Google Scholar
Rüppell, O., Heinze, J. & Hölldobler, B. Intracolonial patterns of reproduction in the queen-size dimorphic ant Leptothorax rugatulus. Behav. Ecol. 13, 239–247 (2002).
Google Scholar
Buschinger, A. Sympatric speciation and radiative evolution of socially parasitic ants—Heretic hypotheses and their factual background. Z. für Zool. Syst. und Evol. 28, 241–260 (1990).
Google Scholar
Buschinger, A. Social parasitism among ants: A review (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Myrmecol. News 12, 219–235 (2009).
Bourke, A. F. G. & Franks, N. R. Alternative adaptations, sympatric speciation and the evolution of parasitic, inquiline ants. Biol. J. Linn. Soc. 43, 157–178 (1991).
Google Scholar
Rabeling, C. Social parasitism. In Encyclopedia of Social Insects (ed. Starr, C.) 838–858. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90306-4_175-1 (Springer, 2020).
Google Scholar
Huang, M. H. & Dornhaus, A. A meta-analysis of ant social parasitism: Host characteristics of different parasitism types and a test of Emery’s rule. Ecol. Entomol. 33, 589–596 (2008).
Google Scholar
Ward, P. S. A new workerless social parasite in the ant genus Pseudomyrmex (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), with a discussion of the origin of social parasitism in ants. Syst. Entomol. 21, 253–263 (1996).
Google Scholar
Jansen, G., Savolainen, R. & Vepsäläinen, K. Phylogeny, divergence-time estimation, biogeography and social parasite-host relationships of the Holarctic ant genus Myrmica (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. 56, 294–304 (2010).
Google Scholar
Leppänen, J., Seppä, P., Vepsäläinen, K. & Savolainen, R. Genetic divergence between the sympatric queen morphs of the ant Myrmica rubra. Mol. Ecol. 24, 2463–2476 (2015).
Google Scholar
Nettel-Hernanz, A., Lachaud, J. P., Fresneau, D., López-Muñoz, R. A. & Poteaux, C. Biogeography, cryptic diversity, and queen dimorphism evolution of the Neotropical ant genus Ectatomma Smith, 1958 (Formicidae, Ectatomminae). Org. Divers. Evol. 15, 543–553 (2015).
Google Scholar
Rabeling, C., Schultz, T. R., Pierce, N. E. & Bacci, M. A social parasite evolved reproductive isolation from its fungus-growing ant host in sympatry. Curr. Biol. 24, 2047–2052 (2014).
Google Scholar
Savolainen, R. & Vepsäläinen, K. Sympatric speciation through intraspecific social parasitism. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 100, 7169–7174 (2003).
Google Scholar
Sumner, S., Hughes, W. O. H. & Boomsma, J. J. Evidence for differential selection and potential adaptive evolution in the worker caste of an inquiline social parasite. Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 54, 256–263 (2003).
Google Scholar
Prebus, M. Insights into the evolution, biogeography and natural history of the acorn ants, genus Temnothorax Mayr (hymenoptera: Formicidae). BMC Evol. Biol. 17, 1–22 (2017).
Google Scholar
Fischer, G. et al. Socially parasitic ants evolve a mosaic of host-matching and parasitic morphological traits. Curr. Biol. 30, 3639-3646.e4 (2020).
Google Scholar
Parker, J. D. & Rissing, S. W. Molecular evidence for the origin of workerless social parasites in the ant genus Pogonomyrmex. Evolution 56, 2017–2028 (2002).
Google Scholar
Shoemaker, D. D. W., Ahrens, M. E. & Ross, K. G. Molecular phylogeny of fire ants of the Solenopsis saevissima species-group based on mtDNA sequences. Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. 38, 200–215 (2006).
Google Scholar
Fournier, D. et al. Social structure and genetic distance mediate nestmate recognition and aggressiveness in the facultative polygynous ant Pheidole pallidula. PLoS ONE 11, e0156440 (2016).
Google Scholar
Beye, M., Neumann, P., Chapuisat, M., Pamilo, P. & Moritz, R. F. A. Nestmate recognition and the genetic relatedness of nests in the ant Formica pratensis. Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 43, 67–72 (1998).
Google Scholar
Starks, P. T., Watson, R. E., Dipaola, M. J. & Dipaola, C. P. The effect of queen number on nestmate discrimination in the facultatively polygynous ant Pseudomyrmex pallidus (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Ethology 104, 573–584 (1998).
Google Scholar
Hora, R. R. et al. Facultative polygyny in Ectatomma tuberculatum (Formicidae, Ectatomminae). Insectes Soc. 52, 194–200 (2005).
Google Scholar
Dahan, R. A., Grove, N. K., Bollazzi, M., Gerstner, B. P. & Rabeling, C. Decoupled evolution of mating biology and social structure in Acromyrmex leaf-cutting ants. Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 76, 7 (2022).
Google Scholar
Buschinger, A. Evolution of social parasitism in ants. Trends Ecol. Evol. 1, 155–160 (1986).
Google Scholar
Keller, L. & Reeve, H. K. Genetic variability, queen number, and polyandry in social Hymenoptera. Evolution 48, 694–704 (1994).
Google Scholar
Frumhoff, P. C. & Ward, P. S. Individual-level selection, colony-level selection, and the association between polygyny and worker monomorphism in ants. Am. Nat. 139, 559–590 (1992).
Google Scholar
Rissing, S. W. & Pollock, G. B. Pleometrosis and polygyny in ants. In Interindividual Behavioral Variability in Social Insects (ed. Jeanne, R. L.) 179–222 (Westview Press, 1988).
Keller, L. & Passera, L. Physiologie des sexués femelles de fourmis (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) en relation avec le mode the fondation. Actes des Colloq. Insectes Sociaux 5, 63–68 (1989).
Foitzik, S. & Heinze, J. Nest site limitation and colony takeover in the ant Leptothorax nylanderi. Behav. Ecol. 9, 367–375 (1998).
Google Scholar
Schär, S. & Nash, D. R. Evidence that microgynes of Myrmica rubra ants are social parasites that attack old host colonies. J. Evol. Biol. 27, 2396–2407 (2014).
Google Scholar
Gallardo, A. Notes systématique et éthologiques sur les fourmis attines de la République Argentine. An. del Mus Nac. Hist. Nat. Buenos Aires 28, 317–344 (1916).
Harvey, P. H. & Pagel, M. D. The Comparative Method in Evolutionary Biology (Oxford University Press, 1991).
Ridley, M. The Explanation of Organic Diversity: The Comparative Methods and Adaptations for Mating (Oxford Science Publications, 1983).
Paradis, E., Claude, J. & Strimmer, K. APE: Analyses of phylogenetics and evolution in R. Bioinformatics 20, 289–290 (2004).
Google Scholar
Revell, L. J. phytools: An R package for phylogenetic comparative biology (and other things). Methods Ecol. Evol. 3, 217–223 (2012).
Google Scholar
R Core Team. R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing (R Foundation for Statistical Computing, 2021).
Wolf, J. I. & Seppä, P. Queen size dimorphism in social insects. Insectes Soc. 63, 25–38 (2015).
Google Scholar
Leppänen, J., Seppä, P., Vepsäläinen, K. & Savolainen, R. Mating isolation between the ant Myrmica rubra and its microgynous social parasite. Insectes Soc. 63, 79–86 (2016).
Google Scholar
Messer, S. J., Cover, S. P. & Rabeling, C. Two new species of socially parasitic Nylanderia ants from the southeastern United States. Zookeys 921, 23–48 (2020).
Google Scholar
Rabeling, C. et al. Acromyrmex fowleri: A new inquiline social parasite species of leaf-cutting ants from South America, with a discussion of social parasite biogeography in the Neotropical region. Insectes Soc. 66, 435–451 (2019).
Google Scholar
Grüter, C., Jongepier, E. & Foitzik, S. Insect societies fight back: The evolution of defensive traits against social parasites. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. B Biol. Sci. 373, 1. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2017.0200 (2018).
Google Scholar
Davies, N. B., Bourke, A. F. G., De, L. & Brooke, M. Cuckoos and parasitic ants: Interspecific brood parasitism as an evolutionary arms race. Trends Ecol. Evol. 4, 274–278 (1989).
Google Scholar
Herbers, J. M. & Foitzik, S. The ecology of slavemaking ants and their hosts in north temperate forests. Ecology 83, 148–163 (2002).
Google Scholar
Foitzik, S. & Herbers, J. M. Colony structure of a slavemaking ant. II. Frequency of slave raids and impact on the host population. Evolution 55, 316–323 (2001).
Google Scholar
Wilson, E. O. Tropical social parasites in the ant genus Pheidole, with an analysis of the anatomical parasitic syndrome (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Insectes Soc. 31, 316–334 (1984).
Google Scholar
Rüppell, O., Heinze, J. & Hölldobler, B. Complex determination of queen body size in the queen size dimorphic ant Leptothorax rugatulus (Formicidae: Hymenoptera). Heredity 87, 33–40 (2001).
Google Scholar
Nonacs, P. & Tobin, J. E. Selfish larvae: Development and the evolution of parasitic behavior in the Hymenoptera. Evolution 46, 1605–1620 (1992).
Google Scholar
Wolf, J. I. & Seppä, P. Dispersal and mating in a size-dimorphic ant. Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 70, 1267–1276 (2016).
Google Scholar
Elmes, G. W. Miniature queens of the ant Myrmica rubra L. (Hymenoptera, Formicidae). Entomologist 106, 133–136 (1973).
Feitosa, R. M., Hora, R. R., Delabie, J. H. C., Valenzuela, J. & Fresneau, D. A new social parasite in the ant genus Ectatomma F. Smith (Hymenoptera, Formicidae, Ectatomminae). Zootaxa 52, 47–52 (2008).
Seifert, B. Taxonomic description of Myrmica microrubra n. sp.—A social parasitic ant so far known as the microgyne of Myrmica rubra (L.). Abhandlungen Berichte des Nat. Görlitz 67, 9–12 (1993).
Rabeling, C. & Bacci, M. A new workerless inquiline in the Lower Attini (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), with a discussion of social parasitism in fungus-growing ants. Syst. Entomol. 35, 379–392 (2010).
Google Scholar
Trible, W. & Kronauer, D. J. C. Caste development and evolution in ants: It’s all about size. J. Exp. Biol. 220, 53–62 (2017).
Google Scholar
Aron, S., Passera, L. & Keller, L. Evolution of miniaturisation in inquiline parasitic ants: Timing of male elimination in Plagiolepis pygmaea, the host of Plagiolepis xene. Insectes Soc. 51, 395–399 (2004).
Google Scholar
West-Eberhard, M. J. Alternative adaptations, speciation, and phylogeny (a review). Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 83, 1388–1392 (1986).
Google Scholar
Schultz, T. R., Bekkevold, D. & Boomsma, J. J. Acromyrmex insinuator new species: An incipient social parasite of fungus-growing ants. Insectes Soc. 45, 457–471 (1998).
Google Scholar
Hakala, S. M., Seppä, P. & Helanterä, H. Evolution of dispersal in ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae): A review on the dispersal strategies of sessile superorganisms. Myrmecol. News 29, 35–55 (2019).
Leppänen, J., Vepsäläinen, K. & Savolainen, R. Phylogeography of the ant Myrmica rubra and its inquiline social parasite. Ecol. Evol. 1, 46–62 (2011).
Google Scholar
Messer, S. J., Cover, S. P. & LaPolla, J. S. Nylanderia deceptrix sp. n., a new species of obligately socially parasitic formicine ant (Hymenoptera, Formicidae). Zookeys 552, 49–65 (2016).
Google Scholar
Lopez-Osorio, F., Perrard, A., Pickett, K. M., Carpenter, J. M. & Agnarsson, I. Phylogenetic tests reject Emery’s rule in the evolution of social parasitism in yellowjackets and hornets (Hymenoptera: Vespidae, Vespinae). R. Soc. Open Sci. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.150159 (2015).
Google Scholar
Ward, P. S., Brady, S. G., Fisher, B. L. & Schultz, T. R. The evolution of myrmicine ants: Phylogeny and biogeography of a hyperdiverse ant clade (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Syst. Entomol. 40, 61–81 (2015).
Google Scholar
Heinze, J., Buschinger, A., Poettinger, T. & Suefuji, M. Multiple convergent origins of workerlessness and inbreeding in the socially parasitic ant genus Myrmoxenus. PLoS ONE 10, 1–10 (2015).
Google Scholar
Suefuji, M. & Heinze, J. Degenerate slave-makers, but nevertheless slave-makers? Host worker relatedness in the ant Myrmoxenus kraussei. Integr. Zool. 10, 182–185 (2015).
Google Scholar
Talbot, M. The natural history of the workerless ant parasite, Formica talbotae. Psyche 83, 282–288 (1976).
Google Scholar
Wilson, E. O. The first workerless parasite in the ant genus Formica (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Psyche 83, 277–281 (1976).
Google Scholar
Borowiec, M. L., Cover, S. P. & Rabeling, C. The evolution of social parasitism in Formica ants revealed by a global phylogeny. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 118, e2026029118 (2021).
Google Scholar
Source: Ecology - nature.com