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Evolution of supercolonies: The Argentine ants of southern Europe

It is suggested that a “genetic cleansing” of recognition cues occurred after introduction of the Argentine ant, which resulted in the formation of two immense supercolonies, one of which effectively forms the largest cooperative unit ever recorded.
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MATESOFT: a program for deducing parental genotypes and estimating mating system statistics in haplodiploid species

The computer program matesoft offers both newly developed algorithms for inferring maternal and paternal genotypes, and integrated estimation and correction procedures for calculating mating frequency statistics.
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Inclusive fitness theory and eusociality

It is argued that inclusive fitness theory has been of little value in explained the natural world, and that it has led to negligible progress in explaining the evolution of eusociality, but these arguments are based upon a misunderstanding of evolutionary theory and a misrepresentation of the empirical literature.
Nature (opens in a new tab)

NATIVE SUPERCOLONIES OF UNRELATED INDIVIDUALS IN THE INVASIVE ARGENTINE ANT

It is found that native populations also form supercolonies, and are effectively unicolonial, just as in introduced populations, and the relatedness between nestmates is not distinguishable from zero in these native range supercolony.
Wiley (opens in a new tab)

The worldwide expansion of the Argentine ant

The number of successful establishments of the invasive Argentine ant outside native range is determined and whether introduced supercolonies have resulted from single or multiple introductions is compared.
Wiley (opens in a new tab)

Genetic analysis of colony structure in polydomous and polygynous ant populations

Three methods to solve the identification of colonies problem are presented: rare genotype sisterhoods, G -distance (a measure of genotypic heterogeneity derived from G -statistics), and neighbour relatedness (estimates of genetic relatedness for specific nest pairs).
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Effect of habitat saturation on the number and turnover of queens in the polygynous ant, Myrmica sulcinodis

This study examines the social and genetic structure of colonies in the polygynous ant Myrmica sulcinodis and suggests that a special class of queen ‘floaters’ only stays ephemerally in the colonies, thus causing a substantial turnover of reproducing queens across years.
Wiley (opens in a new tab)

Dynamics and Genetic Structure of Argentine Ant Supercolonies in Their Native Range

Investigation of native populations of the Argentine ant Linepithema humile revealed a very high turnover, likely to involve strong competition between supercolonies and thus act as a potent selective force maintaining unicoloniality over evolutionary time.
BioOne (opens in a new tab)

Positive association of queen number and queen-mating frequency Myrmica ants: a challenge to the genetic-variability hypotheses

It is concluded that multiple paternity in M. sulcinodis did not evolve as an adaptation to increase genetic variation within colonies, and that moderate degrees of multiple mating may be an unselected consequence of mating at low cost when mating occurs close to the nest and mating in swarms with a highly male biased operational sex ratio.
Springer Nature (opens in a new tab)

Multiple paternity in social Hymenoptera: estimating the effective mate number in single–double mating populations

This study examines methods for estimating the effective mate number and other paternity frequency parameters in populations dominated by single and double mating of queens, based on genetical data from parent–offspring combinations and proposes a general method to correct simultaneously for errors from nondetection and nonsampling when estimating the population frequency of double‐mated queens.
Wiley (opens in a new tab)
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