PATTERNS OF REPRODUCTION IN SLAVE-MAKING ANTS

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.