GEOGRAPHICAL VARIATION IN THE SOCIAL AND GENETIC-STRUCTURE OF THE ANT, LEPTOTHORAX-ACERVORUM

The common holarctic ant, Leptothorax acervorum shows a surprising amo unt of genetic variation. Seven of 20 enzymes studied were variable to some extent. The average H-exp was 0.13 in individuals from the Nurnb erger Reichswald. GPI and PGM-1 electromorph frequencies differed litt le between 16 populations all over Europe, perhaps due to large popula tion size. The sociogenetic organization of colonies, especially the a verage number of queens per colony, is highly flexible. In an electrop horetic analysis of the electromorph phenotypes of a total of 4025 wor kers and 323 queens, the average degree of nestmate relatedness varied between 0.21 and 0.80. Nestmate queens were found to be closely relat ed in two of three populations studied in this respect.