I'm Spantacus! Slave ants rebel

Caroline Morley, online picture researcher

(Image: Alexandra Achenbach)

Their home has been invaded, their queen killed and they have been forced to rear the offspring of their enemy, but these ants are fighting back. Here workers from the host species Temnothorax longispinosus are killing a pupa of colony parasite Protomognathus americanus.

Susanne Foitzik from Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany - who first discovered this rebellious behaviour - and her colleagues have now shown that it is more common than previously thought. Studying populations in West Virginia, New York and Ohio, they found that on average 95 per cent of the parasitic ant larvae survived to pupa stage - but then the slave ants attacked or neglected them. Only 45 per cent of the parasite's offspring survived to adulthood. In comparison, the survival rate for host pupae in their own free-living nests is 85 per cent.

The slave rebellions did not entirely overthrow the oppressors, but they did significantly slow down the growth of the parasite population - and seem to be altruistic. Foitzik said: "The enslaved workers do not directly benefit from the killings because they do not reproduce."

The researchers have suggested that the slave ants' mistreatment of the parasites mean the slave-makers were less likely to invade neighbouring closely related colonies.

Journal reference: Evolutionary Ecology, DOI: 10.1007/s10682-012-9584-0

Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/23e1dbb3/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Cblogs0Cshortsharpscience0C20A120C0A90Cslave0Eants0Erebel0Bhtml0DDCMP0FOTC0Erss0Gnsref0Fonline0Enews/story01.htm

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