The Inquiline Ant <i>Myrmica karavajevi</i> Uses Both Chemical and Vibroacoustic Deception Mechanisms to Integrate into Its Host Colonies
2021
Luca Pietro Casacci | Francesca Barbero | Piotr Ślipiński | Magdalena Witek
Social parasitism represents a particular type of agonistic interaction in which a parasite exploits an entire society instead of a single organism. One fascinating form of social parasitism in ants is the “inquilinism”, in which a typically worker-less parasitic queen coexists with the resident queen in the host colony and produces sexual offspring. To bypass the recognition system of host colonies, inquilines have evolved a repertoire of deceiving strategies. We tested the level of integration of the inquiline <i>Myrmica karavajevi</i> within the host colonies of <i>M. scabrinodis</i> and we investigated the mechanisms of chemical and vibroacoustic deception used by the parasite. <i>M. karavajevi</i> is integrated into the ant colony to such an extent that, in rescue experiments, the parasite pupae were saved prior to the host’s brood. <i>M. karavajevi</i> gynes perfectly imitated the cuticular hydrocarbon profiles of <i>M. scabrinodis</i> queens and the parasite vibroacoustic signals resembled those emitted by the host queens eliciting the same levels of attention in the host workers during playback experiments. Our results suggest that <i>M. karavajevi</i> has evolved ultimate deception strategies to reach the highest social status in the colony hierarchy, encouraging the use of a combined molecular and behavioural approach when studying host–parasite interactions.
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