Multiple mating of queens:

> Obligate multiple mating by queens has evolved repeatedly in bees, wasps, and ants. Although facultative multiple mating commonly occurs across taxa, high levels of polyandry have been reported only in a few species with strictly single-queen societies. In ants, queen mating frequency is usually lower than 2, but high polyandry levels have evolved in the leaf cutter ants Acromyrmex and Atta, the harvester ants Pogonomyrmex, and the army ants of the genera Aenictus, Dorylus, Eciton, and Neivamyrmex.

The polygyny versus polyandry
hypothesis (Keller & Reeve, 1994) predicts that multiple
mating should be less common or lost when
genetic diversity among workers is achieved through
multiple queens per colony.

Despite considerable empirical efforts, our understanding
of the evolution of polyandry in the face of
the costs of mating in social insects remains limited.

Multiple mating and supercoloniality in Cataglyphis desert ants
LAURIANNE LENIAUD, et al
Biological Journal of the Linnean Society
Article first published online: 10 OCT 2011

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