Functional properties of ant queen pheromones as revealed by behavioral experiments

Abstract

Abstract Ants represent one of the most prominent groups of social animals by virtue of their colony social structure, where up to millions of individuals cooperate to survive, compete, and reproduce as a single superorganism. Members of ant colonies typically are categorized into a reproductive queen caste and a non-reproductive worker caste. The queen conveys her fertility condition and genotypic information via a suite of queen pheromones, which act as agents that manifest various effects crucial to the superorganismal nature of ant colonies. A firm understanding of the functional roles of queen pheromones is required to identify constituent chemicals and to understand their mode of functions. In this review, I summarize functional properties of ant queen pheromones learned from seven decades of behavioral experiments, and contextualize this knowledge within the broader understanding of queen pheromones in other major groups of social insects. The effects include promotion of colony integrity and coherence, maintenance of reproductive dominance of the queen, and regulation of colony social structure. Additionally, general characteristics of queen pheromones are discussed and potential revenues for future research are highlighted.