Why some ant colonies get tricked into killing their very own queens : NPR

[ad_1] <img src="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/954x768+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fdd%2F26%2F5e3705a34a9c9d3eb8162dac21ed%2Fgelbe-wiesenameise-erdnest.jpg" data-template="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/954x768+0+0/resize/{width}/quality/{quality}/format/{format}/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fdd%2F26%2F5e3705a34a9c9d3eb8162dac21ed%2Fgelbe-wiesenameise-erdnest.jpg" class="img" alt="These queens are leaving to start their own colonies. It's a risky endeavor. Even if they are successful, they still face threats — like a parasitic queen that may try to trick their colony into regicide." fetchpriority="high"/> These queens are leaving to begin their very own colonies. It is a dangerous endeavor. Even when they're profitable, they nonetheless face threats — like a parasitic queen that will attempt to topple them. Joachim Okay. Löckener, CC BY-SA 3.0/Wikimedia Commons cover caption

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Joachim Okay. Löckener, CC BY-SA 3.0/Wikimedia Commons Biologist E.O. Wilson as soon as wrote that "ants are probably the most warlike of all animals," noting that clashes between ant colonies dwarfed the human battles at Waterloo and Gettysburg. However generally ant colonies get conquered not by outright warfare, however by stealth and deceit.

In reality, generally the members of an ant colony can get tricked into murdering their very own treasured queen.

That is in response to a brand new report within the journal Present Biology, which reveals how some feminine ants observe a sort of chemical warfare that lets them sneak into the established colonies of different ant species and manipulate the employee ants into committing regicide — the act of killing a monarch — with the intention to usurp the throne.

The function of queen is paramount in an ant colony; the queen produces all of the eggs, whereas the employees care for her. After a colony has been round awhile and gotten larger, nonetheless, it'll begin to produce some females which can be able to copy. These females fly away, with the intention to set up new colonies and their very own reigns.

The founding of an ant colony by a would-be queen, nonetheless, is a precarious, fragile enterprise. The feminine ant faces a number of hazard as she leaves the safety of the nest and lays the eggs that can produce her first personnel.

"Even one small mistake, or one dangerous luck occasion that kills off your workforce, can imply the tip of the colony," says Erik Frank, an ant knowledgeable on the College of Würzburg in Germany.

So some species have developed to have a canny technique — their females discover a colony, knock the prevailing queen off her perch and take her place. That lets them benefit from the care and safety of a ready-made workforce whereas laying the eggs wanted to slowly construct up their very own genetically-related societies.

"It's extremely engaging to do it, as a result of the toughest half for the colony is to construct up their metropolis, construct up that colony," says Frank.

Merely taking up one other colony "may be very environment friendly," agrees Keizo Takasuka, an ecologist at Kyushu College in Japan. He explains that scientists have noticed feminine ants getting into a overseas colony and instantly throttling or beheading a queen.

However Takasuka, together with colleagues Taku Shimada and Yuji Tanaka, just lately noticed a few ant species within the lab, Lasius orientalis and umbratus. And what they discovered is that feminine ants from these species can use a much more devious methodology of eliminating a colony's queen and stealing her crown.

First, the feminine ant wants some camouflage, in order that she will be able to enter the focused colony with out being detected as an outsider.

Since ants primarily inform pal from foe utilizing chemical indicators, the feminine ant can choose up the mandatory scent by coming into contact with a number of of the colony's staff. Takasuka's group gave females the chance to do that within the lab, letting them work together with staff from two different species, Lasius flavus and japonicus.

Then the scientists watched as a disguised feminine would make her approach by way of a colony in the direction of its queen. As soon as she reached the monarch, the overseas ant would shoot jets of fluid from her stomach, to douse the queen in some sort of chemical, after which retreat.

"My guess is that it was formic acid," says Takasuka. That is utilized by some ants as a protection, or to sign hazard. No matter it was, placing this chemical onto the reigning queen had a dramatic impact.

Swarms of staff who had been lovingly obedient, prepared to put down their lives to guard their queen — who additionally was their organic mom — abruptly turned on her, attacking her violently till she was lifeless.

Of their report, the researchers name this the primary documented case of a parasite that "prompts offspring to kill an in any other case indispensable mom."

After the matricide, the colony's ants accepted the invading feminine as their new queen and started to serve her, defending her and serving to to boost her progeny.

"Clearly there may be completely zero profit to the host colony to kill their very own queen," notes Frank, who wasn't a part of the analysis workforce however watched a video of the chemical sprays and subsequent unwitting betrayal of the queen by her personal topics.

Given how a lot the brand new queen advantages, he says, it is a stable technique: "I might name it a parasite abusing the workforce of the host colony to do their soiled work, mainly."

He says it was fascinating to see it on video, as a result of normally, this sort of drama performs out at nighttime, like in an underground nest. That is why ants rely a lot on chemical smells reasonably than imaginative and prescient and why they're susceptible to being tricked on this approach.

"Chemical communication performs such a significant function in how these animals understand the world and the way they interpret info that it is vitally unsurprising for me that the parasite might manipulate the host staff to assault their very own queen," says Frank. "As a result of to them, it might now not be the queen."