Sperm storage induces an immunity cost in ants

Boris Baer (), Sophie A. O. Armitage and Jacobus J. Boomsma
Additional contact information
Boris Baer: Institute of Biology
Sophie A. O. Armitage: Institute of Biology
Jacobus J. Boomsma: Institute of Biology

Nature, 2006, vol. 441, issue 7095, 872-875

Abstract: Abstract Ant queens are among the most long-lived insects known1,2. They mate early in adult life and maintain millions of viable sperm in their sperm storage organ until they die many years later3,4. Because they never re-mate, the reproductive success of queens is ultimately sperm-limited, but it is not known what selective forces determine the upper limit to sperm storage. Here we show that sperm storage carries a significant cost of reduced immunity during colony founding. Newly mated queens of the leaf-cutting ant Atta colombica upregulate their immune response shortly after completing their nest burrow, probably as an adaptive response to a greater exposure to pathogens in the absence of grooming workers. However, the immune response nine days after colony founding is negatively correlated with the amount of sperm in the sperm storage organ, indicating that short-term survival is traded off against long-term reproductive success. The immune response was lower when more males contributed to the stored sperm, indicating that there might be an additional cost of mating or storing genetically different ejaculates.

Date: 2006
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature04698 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:441:y:2006:i:7095:d:10.1038_nature04698

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature04698

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().