In most colonies, ants work in service of a single reproductive queen, but that’s not always the way ant societies function.
In most colonies, ants work in service of a single reproductive queen, but that’s not always the way ant societies function.
Researchers at the University of Georgia have found colonies of tropical fire ants, native to Florida and coastal Georgia, that thrive with multiple queens and in close proximity to single-queen colonies of the same species.
“The coexistence of two dramatically different social structures fascinated me,” Kip Lacy said. “I had to know more.”
Lacy, who is currently a graduate fellow at the Rockefeller University but received his master’s degree in entomology from UGA’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences in 2018, worked with UGA fire ant researcher Ken Ross and DeWayne Shoemaker at the University of Tennessee to isolate and document the multi-queen colonies.
Read more at University of Georgia
Image: This is Kip Lacy in entomology professor Ken Ross' lab at the Riverbend Research Lab North. (Credit: Andrew Davis Tucker/UGA)
