ArticleBMC ecology and evolution2021
Experimental increase of worker diversity benefits brood production in ants.
Article in BMC ecology and evolution, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Influences of pupal presence and worker number on the survival and development of pharaoh ant (Animal cells and systems · 2026Article
- Genome of the green-head ant, Rhytidoponera metallica, reveals mechanisms of toxin evolution in a genetically hyper-diverse eusocial species.Genome biology · 2025Article
- The ontogeny of selection on genetic diversity in harvester ants.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2022Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe reproductive division of labor of eusocial insects, whereby one or several queens monopolize reproduction, evolved in a context of high genetic relatedness. However, many extant eusocial species have developed strategies that decrease genetic relatedness in their colonies, suggesting some benefits of the increased diversity. Multiple studies support this hypothesis by showing positive correlations between genetic diversity and colony fitness, as well as finding effects of experimental manipulations of diversity on colony performance. However, alternative explanations could account for most of these reports, and the benefits of diversity on performance in eusocial insects still await validation. In this study, we experimentally increased worker diversity in small colonies of the ant Lasius niger while controlling for typical confounding factors.
resultsWe found that experimental colonies composed of workers coming from three different source colonies produced more larvae and showed more variation in size compared to groups of workers coming from a single colony.
conclusionsWe propose that the benefits of increased diversity stemmed from an improved division of labor. Our study confirms that worker diversity enhances colony performance, thus providing a possible explanation for the evolution of multiply mated queens and multiple-queen colonies in many species of eusocial insects.
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