ArticleDie Naturwissenschaften2017
Intrinsic worker mortality depends on behavioral caste and the queens' presence in a social insect.
Article in Die Naturwissenschaften, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.
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Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed.
- Multi-Omics Analysis RevealsEcology and evolution · 2025Article
- Worker Survival and Egg Production-But Not Transcriptional Activity-Respond to Queen Number in the Highly Polygynous, Invasive Ant Tapinoma magnum.Molecular ecology · 2025Article
- Task-specific odorant receptor expression in worker antennae indicates that sensory filters regulate division of labor in ants.Communications biology · 2023Article
- Social isolation shortens lifespan through oxidative stress in ants.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Histone acetyltransferases and external demands influence task switching inBiology letters · 2023Article
- Both age and social environment shape the phenotype of ant workers.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Transcriptome and metabolome comprehensive analysis reveal the molecular basis of slow-action and non-repellency of cycloxaprid against an eusocial pest,Frontiers in physiology · 2023Article
- Eusociality is linked to caste-specific differences in metabolism, immune system, and somatic maintenance-related processes in an ant species.Cellular and molecular life sciences : CMLS · 2021Article
- Histone acetylation regulates the expression of genes involved in worker reproduction in the ant Temnothorax rugatulus.BMC genomics · 2021Article
- Extreme lifespan extension in tapeworm-infected ant workers.Royal Society open science · 2021Article
- The plasticity of lifespan in social insects.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Review
- Ageing and sociality: why, when and how does sociality change ageing patterns?Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Queen loss increases worker survival in leaf-cutting ants under paraquat-induced oxidative stress.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Molecular regulation of lifespan extension in fertile ant workers.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Immune challenge reduces gut microbial diversity and triggers fertility-dependent gene expression changes in a social insect.BMC genomics · 2020Article
- Comparative analyses of caste, sex, and developmental stage-specific transcriptomes in twoEcology and evolution · 2020Article
- Special Significance of Non-Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2020Review
- Abdominal microbial communities in ants depend on colony membership rather than caste and are linked to colony productivity.Ecology and evolution · 2019Article
- Vitellogenin-like A-associated shifts in social cue responsiveness regulate behavioral task specialization in an ant.PLoS biology · 2018Article
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
According to the classic life history theory, selection for longevity depends on age-dependant extrinsic mortality and fecundity. In social insects, the common life history trade-off between fecundity and longevity appears to be reversed, as the most fecund individual, the queen, often exceeds workers in lifespan several fold. But does fecundity directly affect intrinsic mortality also in social insect workers? And what is the effect of task on worker mortality? Here, we studied how social environment and behavioral caste affect intrinsic mortality of ant workers. We compared worker survival between queenless and queenright Temnothorax longispinosus nests and demonstrate that workers survive longer under the queens' absence. Temnothorax ant workers fight over reproduction when the queen is absent and dominant workers lay eggs. Worker fertility might therefore increase lifespan, possibly due to a positive physiological link between fecundity and longevity, or better care for fertile workers. In social insects, division of labor among workers is age-dependant with young workers caring for the brood and old ones going out to forage. We therefore expected nurses to survive longer than foragers, which is what we found. Surprisingly, inactive inside workers showed a lower survival than nurses but comparable to that of foragers. The reduced longevity of inactive workers could be due to them being older than the nurses, or due to a positive effect of activity on lifespan. Overall, our study points to behavioral caste-dependent intrinsic mortality rates and a positive association between fertility and longevity not only in queens but also in ant workers.
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