Asi es la vida en Africa

Between selfishness and altruism: workers in monogymous polydomous colonies of Pachycondyla goeldii.
Ant queens are usually thought to produce a chemical signal so that workers can detect their presence in the colony.
The efficiency of such signal lies on a certain vicinity between the queen and the workers, which is not the case in monogynous polydomous colonies.
Such colonies indeed display two kind of nests: one nest containing the queen (the queenright one), and one or more queenless nest(s). Absence of the queen in queenless nest(s) could lead to the development of hierarchy, similarly to what happens in orphaned colonies.
In such situation, workers from queenless and queenright nests could develop hardly compatible behaviours.
When the first would try breeding their own offspring, the second would on the contrary sacrifice their reproduction for breeding queen’s brood. Such mixed situation, where reproductive workers, non reproductive workers and queen(s) coexist could favour ‘worker policing’: workers that take care of queen’s brood could develop agonistic behaviours against reproductive workers, thus reducing their reproductive potential.
Our study provides data on workers interactions in a monogynous polydomous species, the Pachycondyla goeldii ponerinae ant.
As a first step we used orphaned colonies to work out a comprehensive index for hierarchy development.
In a second experiment we allowed workers from other colonies to establish a secondary nest (in addition to the original, queenright one). Our results prove that workers develop hierarchical relationships in those secondary, queenless nests.
Last, we trapped workers either in the queenless or the queenright nest using dorsal alitrunks.
Our results prove that no ‘worker policing’ occur in the queenless nest, despite of the ovarian development of resident workers.