Queen loss fails to elicit physiological and transcriptional responses in workers of the invasive garden ant <i>Lasius neglectus</i>
Journal: bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
Year: 2024

Abstract Insect colonies with morphologically distinct castes have been called superorganisms because their queens and workers are functionally analogous to the germline and soma in metazoan bodies. In the haplodiploid ants, workers typically lost the sperm storage organ but retained ovaries so they can lay unfertilized eggs. Worker reproduction often occurs after queen loss and is accompanied by a number of physiological changes. However, in some evolutionarily derived ants, workers have become