A paper by Schwander and Keller in Science of October 24, 2008, describes their work with harvester ants (Pogonomyrmex rugosus), a species which, like honeybees, has colonies with multiply-mated queens.  They found that different patrilines affected the relative frequencies of queen vs. worker development from fertilized eggs.  In other words, some males were better queen producers than others, at least with a particular queen.  The authors hypothesize that this effect may be due to interaction between the parental genomes, and may be common amongst social insects.

It would be interesting to know whether harvester ants have anything analagous to the royal jelly of honeybees.

Walter Weller


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