According to a study published by a team of biologists, ant slaves trapped in their oppressors' nests covertly kill off the offspring they are left to care for in acts of rebellion that are part of an evolutionary ant "arms race".
The study, published in the journal Evolutionary Ecology, reveals that earlier recorded instances of the behaviours were not isolated acts, but a symptom of a common tendency by enslaved Temnothorax longispinosus worker ants to rebel against their Protomognathus americanus oppressors by means of sabotage. Lead author on the paper Susanne Foitzik of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz witnessed the acts in ant populations located in the US in West Virginia, New York and Ohio. The sabotage resulted in an average survival rate among the captors' offspring of just 45 per cent -- in ordinary circumstances, around 85 per cent of the pupae (a life stage of ants that follows the larval stage) should survive. Instances of the slaves neglecting and tearing apart the vulnerable pupae -- alone, or in gang attacks -- were recorded. The study deduced that, since the workers cannot reproduce, the clever tactic is designed to weaken the parasitic colony, thus giving opposing colonies a fighting chance. It is a militaristic tactic, rather than a brood defence.
By: Liat Clark, Edited by: David Cornish
Continue reading...Source: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-09/26/ant-slave-rebellions
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