Pleometrosis
Behaviour in social insects / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Pleometrosis is a behavior observed in social insects where colony formation is initiated by multiple queens primarily by the same species of insect. This type of behavior has been mainly studied in ants but also occurs in wasps, bees, and termites. This behavior is of significant interest to scientists particularly in ants and termites because nest formation often happens between queens that are unrelated, ruling out the argument of inclusive fitness as the driving force of pleometrosis.[1] Whereas in other species such as wasps and bees co-founding queens are often related.[2] The majority of species that engage in pleometrosis after the initial stages of colony formation will reduce their colonies number of queens down to one dominant queen and either kill or push out the supernumerary queens.[3] However there are some cases where pleometrosis-formed colonies keep multiple queens for longer than the early stages of colony growth.[3] Multiple queens can help to speed a colony through the early stages of colony growth by producing a larger worker ant population faster which helps to out-compete other colonies in colony-dense areas.[3] However forming colonies with multiple queens can also cause intra-colony competition between the queens possibly lowering the likelihood of survival of a queen in a pleometrotic colony.[2]