Jm. Herbers et Rj. Stuart, PATTERNS OF REPRODUCTION IN SLAVE-MAKING ANTS, Proceedings - Royal Society. Biological Sciences, 265(1399), 1998, pp. 875-887
Sex ratios in slave-making ants have been posed as important test case
s for the hypothesis that eusociality evolved via kin selection in ins
ects. Trivers & Hare proposed that sex ratios in slave-makers should r
eflect the queen's interests whereas sex ratios in free-living host an
ts should reflect the workers' interests. We analyse patterns of alloc
ation to males versus females, as well as allocation to growth versus
reproduction for slave-making ants in the tribe Formicoxenini. We find
little support for the hypothesis of exclusive queen control; instead
, our results implicate queen-worker conflict in slave-making ants, bo
th over male allocation ratios and over allocation to growth versus re
production.