Meeting Abstract
P1.155 Tuesday, Jan. 4 Variable success of two colony founding strategies: A case study using the California seed-harvester ant BESPALOVA, Ioulia*; WATERS, James; Mount Holyoke College; Arizona State University bespa20i@mtholyoke.edu
The California seed-harvester ant, Pogonomyrmex californicus, has a broad geographic distribution across the southwestern United States. Two colony founding strategies have been identified in this species. In some locations, complete colonies typically contain multiple queens (pleometrosis) while in other locations queens singly found colonies (haplometrosis) and exhibit aggressive behavior toward each other in forced associations. P. californicus queens are semi-claustral, and queens in pleometrotic association typically continue to contribute to the colony’s worker group past the colony founding stage. The research question I addressed is how the nature of queen cooperation affects colony growth. Queens were collected following their mating flight during the July 4 weekend in Pine Valley, CA and settled in artificial nest enclosures within the lab. Pleometrotic colonies were established with either 1 queen, 2 queens, or 3 queens, and haplometrotic colonies were established with 1 queen each. Colonies were provided with Kentucky bluegrass seeds, fruit flies, and water tubes. In general, 2 queen and 3 queen pleometrotic associations exhibited a higher brood production rate per colony but lower brood production rate per queen compared to haplometrotic colonies. Both the survival rate of queens and rate of brood production was lowest in colonies established with a single pleometrotic queen. Survival rate was highest in pleometrotic colonies established with 2 queens. A number of interesting anecdotal observations were also noted, including instances of adoption of foreign brood by unrelated queens, and various variables connected with reproductive success. This research was supported by Jennifer Fewell’s laboratory at Arizona State University as well as a summer research grant by the Scion Natural Science Foundation.
