Life History

Life history details describe and explain the birth, growth, reproduction and death of an organism. From this life history theory attempts to explain how such features have evolved and influence various aspects a species' biology, e.g., morphology, behavior, ecological interactions and population dynamics. In ants life history details and understanding the evolutionary biology of any given species is complicated in interesting ways by sociality. Biologists are interested in understanding the life histories of ant species in order to better understand individual species, ants as a whole and, more generally, the evolution of sociality.

The Antwiki webpage The Ant Life Cycle provides a general introduction to the life cycle of an ant colony.

TWO CONTRASTING STRATEGIES OF COLONY FOUNDATION

The ability to disperse and establish new colonies is crucial to the ecological success of ants. However, founding queens are often alone, which means that they face the same dangers as solitary insects. Colony-founding behaviours have diversified tremendously across the ants, and underlie their capacity to colonize almost all terrestrial habitats. Unlike social wasps and bees, many ant species evolved (1) queens that can store large amounts of metabolic reserves, (2) workers that are much smaller than their queens. Both these adaptations make it possible to raise the first workers without outside food, and this is arguably central to the success of ants in subfamilies Dolichoderinae, Formicinae and Myrmicinae.

During independent colony founding (ICF), lone queens need to raise the first generation of offspring without the help of nestmates. Following aerial dispersal and mating with a foreign male, they locate a suitable nesting site and break off their wings. They excavate or take over an existing shelter, and lay a first batch of eggs. During the next few weeks (sometimes months), they must guard and feed their offspring. ICF is a risky strategy, necessitating the annual production of a large number of sexuals. In many phylogenetically independent lineages, ICF has been replaced by a strikingly different founding mode, whereby queens are not alone. In such dependent colony founding (DCF) species, existing colonies divide into two or more daughter groups which soon become autonomous. Thus the queens disperse on foot to a new nesting site together with nestmate workers, and the latter feed and protect the brood.

A unique feature of ants is the evolution of permanently wingless queens in many species exhibiting DCF. Many social wasps and bees start new colonies by DCF, but there is universal retention of flying workers and queens. This constraint is absent in ants: wingless workers are the major players during the division of existing colonies, and since dispersal occurs exclusively on foot, the production of winged queens is selected against. Accordingly, ergatoid (no wings) queens (see list of species) and brachypterous (short-winged) queens evolved convergently in species belonging to over 50 genera ([[Media:Peeters MN 2012.pdf|Peeters 2012]]).

PARASITISM IS ALSO A STRATEGY OF INDEPENDENT FOUNDING   In several lineages, newly mated queens attempt to enter existing colonies of their own or different species, following which they exploit local resources to raise their offspring. As discussed by [[Media:Peeters_Molet_2010_Oxford_UP.pdf|Peeters & Molet (2010)]], social parasitism is a form of ICF because queens are not helped by nestmate workers. They disperse alone and take considerable risks when trying to enter the host colony. Host colonies are nothing more than a resource of the environment to be exploited, similar to insect prey. Many authors have considered parasitism to be DCF because queens ‘depend’ on their host colonies, however claustral queens also 'depend' on their metabolic reserves, and non-claustral queens 'depend' on the food they gather outside. What is crucial in DCF species is that queens depend on nestmate workers, and there is convergence of genetic interests among relatives.

The founding strategies of a majority of ant species remain unstudied. Indeed, there are no published data about colony foundation for many large genera. This scarcity of information is linked to the necessity of studying colony foundation in the field. DCF is especially difficult because it can occur unpredictably over the year, and it needs to be distinguished from simple nest emigrations ([[Media:Cronin_ARE2013_dependent_foundation.pdf|Cronin et al. 2013]]).



MATING STRATEGIES ARE DISTINCT FROM FOUNDING STRATEGIES

Mating usually precedes colony founding, but these are two distinct events affected by very different selective pressures ([[Media:Peeters_Molet_2010_Oxford_UP.pdf|Peeters & Molet 2010]]). ICF queens in some species mate close to their natal colony (“female-calling”) before dispersing, while in other species they mate far away (“male-aggregation”). DCF queens mate near their natal colony, or even inside it. This seems true even in DCF species with queens that are capable of flying: since newly mated queens stay in their natal nest, they cannot fly to male-aggregations that are far away. Female-calling is associated with lower mortality since flight means increased risks of predation or getting lost.