Re: The rebellion of the ant slaves
- From: Darwin123 <drosen0000@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 13:36:44 -0400 (EDT)
On Apr 3, 1:35=A0pm, chatnoir <wolfbat3...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
http://tinyurl.com/c2bbn6
Achenbach and Foitzik collected 88 colonies of the slave-making
P.americanus ant that had abducted workers from three species of
Temnothorax. They found that the workers clearly care for the larvae,
and nearly all of them were raised until their pupated. But at that
point, the slaves' behaviour changed dramatically, taking on a more
homicidal bent ... (cont)
On Apr 3, 1:35 pm, chatnoir <wolfbat3...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
http://tinyurl.com/c2bbn6
headline:
Achenbach and Foitzik collected 88 colonies of the slave-making
P.americanus ant that had abducted workers from three species of
Temnothorax. They found that the workers clearly care for the larvae,
and nearly all of them were raised until their pupated. But at that
point, the slaves' behaviour changed dramatically, taking on a more
homicidal bent ... (cont)
Gee. One wonders how the slaver ants last even one generation. I
mean, if this behavior is general then the slaver ants should have
disappeared in the two centuries (more?) that this behavior has been
observed by humans.
Slaver ants are famous for being undeveloped for living
independently. They don't have the proper jaws and equipment for
taking care of their own larvae and pupae. Now you are telling me that
even with the slaves, the colony won't exist past the first pupation.
You can't get reliable slave behavior these days, even among the
arthropods. Given this, how did the slaver behavior get selected at
all?
I suspect you are misrepresenting what Achenbach and Foitzik (AF)
found. They probably were not implying that the slavers have a rather
suicidal way of life. Perhaps the collection process modified the
behavior of the workers. Or perhaps there were just a few homicides. I
doubt the pherenomes that slaver ants use to identify pupa are
identical, 100%, to the pherenomes of the enslaved species. The slave
workers are probably mismatched just a tiny bit from their masters.
One pupa or two that get eaten is negligible compared to the 100 pupae
that survive.
I suspect what AF really found was a trade off between the
parasites "false positive" and "false negative" gene networks for
identifying other parasites. That is, the master species evolves to
have a smell that "resembles" the source of slaves. Therefore, the
slaves smell the pupae and think it is their own species. If the smell
is a little bit wrong, the host species eats the parasite pupa. Not to
protect their relatives, but merely because they think the pupae is
there to eat. If the master species had a smell that was identical to
the slave source, then the master ants would mistake their victims for
their own species. If the soldier ant of the slave species can't tell
the slave pupae from their own, then they wouldn't go raiding the
other colony. So there probably is a balance with regards to the smell
of the pupae.
It looks like a competition between the genes producing the genes
that help the parasite (masters) identify the other species, and the
genes that help the parasite identify their own species. A gene that
says "same: no matter what runs the risk of elimination by not finding
a victim colony. A gene that says "different" no matter what runs the
risk of having a host slave eating the parasite pupae. At no point
does there have to be a gene network that helps the hosts identify the
parasites. The competition seems to be two gene networks inside the
parasite. The unfortunate host pupae has no selection to reject the
parasite pupae. That just happens as a result of mismatch.
.
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- The rebellion of the ant slaves
- From: chatnoir
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