The ant species Leptothorax acervorum is find throughout the Northern hemisphere . While many populations have multiple king , a few have only one queen that reproduces . And in those societies , queens and workers likewise viciously fight for ant dominance .
Researchers from Germany ’s University of Regensburg examined a Leptothorax acervorum colony in Spain . They find that only one of the many queens in the colony was actually able-bodied to reproduce . All the others either did not yet have active ovary , or their ovaries had actually regress back to their former inactive state . And it does n’t seem that the emmet arrived at this state of involvement peacefully .
Prospective queens were observed combat , box with their antennae and threaten each other with their mandibles . These more ritualistic fights appear relatively tame compare to the no - holds - bar craziness that would go down when worker ants take on queens , which involved way more biting and shoving . It appear only the fights between queens could in reality determine which ant would be allow to regurgitate . The workers were fighting more to determine which queen were the most dominant and therefore worthy of their protection .
Lead scientist Juergen Trettin explain :
“ These ant dwell high on mountain incline — which makes diffusion and colony formation hard . Under these circumstances the colony can not support more than one reproductive queer and special resources make it inadvantageous for the colony to admit low ranking queen to exit and set out their own colonies . end of habitat , for representative due to climate modification , may have this behaviour to become extinct . ”
ViaBMC Ecology . icon by Juergen Trettin .
BiologyScienceZoology
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