TY - JOUR
T1 - Cooperation among unrelated individuals
T2 - The ant foundress case
AU - Bernasconi, Giorgina
AU - Strassmann, Joan E.
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Laurent Keller, David Queller, Lotta Sundström and the referees for their comments, Esther Schreier for drawing Fig. 1 , and the Swiss federal program for academic recruitment (no. 409) and NSF grant number IBN 9808809 for partial financial support.
PY - 1999/12/1
Y1 - 1999/12/1
N2 - Ant foundress associations are an example of cooperation among non-kin. Across a dozen genera, queens able to found a colony alone often join unrelated queens, thereby enhancing worker production and colony survivorship. The benefits of joining other queens vary with group size and ecological conditions. However, after the first workers mature, the queens fight until only one survives. The presence of cofoundresses, and their relative fighting ability, also affects the extent of cooperative investment before worker emergence. This reveals previously overlooked early conflicts among queens, which reduce the mutualistic benefits of cooperation.
AB - Ant foundress associations are an example of cooperation among non-kin. Across a dozen genera, queens able to found a colony alone often join unrelated queens, thereby enhancing worker production and colony survivorship. The benefits of joining other queens vary with group size and ecological conditions. However, after the first workers mature, the queens fight until only one survives. The presence of cofoundresses, and their relative fighting ability, also affects the extent of cooperative investment before worker emergence. This reveals previously overlooked early conflicts among queens, which reduce the mutualistic benefits of cooperation.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0033485267&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/S0169-5347(99)01722-X
DO - 10.1016/S0169-5347(99)01722-X
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:0033485267
SN - 0169-5347
VL - 14
SP - 477
EP - 482
JO - Trends in Ecology and Evolution
JF - Trends in Ecology and Evolution
IS - 12
ER -