Like most social Hymenoptera, queens of the fire ant, Solenopsis invicta Buren, mate only at the beginning of their reproductive lives. They receive an initial supply of about 7 million sperm which they gradually parcel out over a period of almost 7 yr until the supply is exhausted and they can no longer produce female offspring. Using the monogynous form of the fire ant, efficiency of sperm use was determined directly by allowing four newly mated queens to rear approximately 0.5 million workers. The mean sperm count of these queens declined by 1.7 million from the starting value, yielding an efficiency of 3.2 sperm per adult female offspring. Sperm-use efficiency was also determined indirectly for field queens based on calculations that show these queens expend 7.0 million sperm to produce 2.6 million workers for an efficiency of about 2.6 sperm per adult female. Lifetime worker production was calculated from annual estimates of colony growth and worker turnover. These estimates of fire ant sperm-use efficiency are about 10 times higher than those reported for honey bee queens and astronomically higher than those of most nonsocial animals. Apparently, efficient use of sperm is an important reproductive capability for S. invicta and other social insects with high reproductive outputs.
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Tschinkel et al. (1988) studied this question.