Ant Queen Alate

Generally alate refers to a winged reproductive caste from a social insect colony in its winged form. Their common behavioural function is starting a new colony, to expand their mother colonies etc. Colonies of termites and ants produces alates. It is a flight-based form of reproductive technique.^{[citation needed]}

In a termite colony, alates (winged males and winged females) disperse in a specific period or a month. Male and female pair to each other during flight, shed their wings, and start a new colony.

Alate is an adjective that refers to wings or winglike structures.^[1] In entomology it usually refers to the winged form of a social insect, especially ants or termites, though can also be applied to aphids and some thrips. Alate females are typically those destined to become gynes (queens), whereas alate males are occasionally referred to as 'drones' (or 'kings', in the case of termites). However, the existence of reproductives that do not have wings (e.g., ergatoid queens and gamergates) necessitates a term to distinguish the winged from the wingless reproductive forms. This is an example of polymorphism associated with eusociality. A 'dealate' is an adult insect that shed or lost its wings ('dealation').

In botany[edit]

Winged female alate / Virgin queen ant Here is an unfertilized virgin queen ant, she has wings present and so is an alate flying ant. These ants take to the skies to mate on a warm, humid summers day also known as the nuptial flight. Once mated, they scurry along the ground to find a. Ant Questions. Answers in the Category 'Ant Questions'. An alate is an insect similar to an ant that has wings during its reproductive phase. Once the insect breeds, the wings fall off and the insect becomes wingless. A queen ant can live up to 28 years! Some female ants live for approximately 10 years. How to care for my Ant Mountain?

In botany alate refers to winglike structures on some seeds that use wind dispersal or it may be used to describe flattened ridges which run longtitudianally on stems.^[2]

References[edit]

1. ^Collins Dictionary (Seventh ed.). Collins. 2008. p. 34. ISBN9780007261123.
2. ^Harrison, Lorraine (2012). Latin for Gardeners. Royal Horticultural Society. p. 20. ISBN9781845337315.

External links[edit]

• The dictionary definition of alate at Wiktionary

Pathogens are predicted to pose a particular threat to eusocial insects because infections can spread rapidly in colonies with high densities of closely related individuals. In ants, there are two major castes: workers and reproductives.

Sterile workers receive no direct benefit from investing in immunity, but can gain indirect fitness benefits if their immunity aids the survival of their fertile siblings. Virgin reproductives (alates), on the other hand, may be able to increase their investment in reproduction, rather than in immunity, because of the protection they receive from workers. Thus, we expect colonies to have highly immune workers, but relatively more susceptible alates. We examined the survival of workers, gynes, and males of nine ant species collected in Peru and Canada when exposed to the entomopathogenic fungus Beauveria bassiana. For the seven species in which treatment with B.

Bassiana increased ant mortality relative to controls, we found workers were significantly less susceptible compared with both alate sexes. Female and male alates did not differ significantly in their immunocompetence. Our results suggest that, as with other nonreproductive tasks in ant colonies like foraging and nest maintenance, workers have primary responsibility for colony immunity, allowing alates to specialize on reproduction. We highlight the importance of colony-level selection on individual immunity in ants and other eusocial organisms.

Ants in fungus, control treatmentsAverage body length, mm (replicates)SubfamilySpeciesNest typeColoniesWorkersGynesMalesWorkersGynesMalesPeruMyrmicinaeAllomerus octoarticulatusArboreal636, 3510, 1022, 221.72 (12)5.46 (7)4.79 (6)DolichoderinaeAzteca sp.Arboreal211, 120, 09, 92.42 (15)1.9 (16)FormicinaeCamponotus mirabilisArboreal627, 279, 723, 235.92 (12)12.25 (8)5.99 (4)FormicinaeCamponotus longipilisArboreal414, 138, 810, 107.42 (7)10.54 (1)6.76 (3)PonerinaeOdontomachus bauriSoil426, 2613, 124, 45.53 (17)6.37 (4)4.16 (6)CanadaMyrmicinaeAphaenogaster cf. RudisSoil743, 3937, 3718, 163.29 (15)5.17 (5)3.54 (12)FormicinaeBrachymyrmex depilisSoil212, 1211, 96, 61.05 (5)2.99 (5)1.47 (5)FormicinaeLasius cf. NearcticusSoil212, 1210, 1012, 122.61 (12)4.95 (5)2.88 (21)MyrmicinaeMyrmica rubra.Soil230, 300, 026, 273.36 (15)3.52 (17). Survival assaysWe exposed ants to the generalist entomopathogenic fungus, Beauveria bassiana, which infects over 200 species of arthropods and has been used in other studies of ant immunity (Feng et al.; Diehl and Junqueira; Schmidt et al. Beauveria bassiana is not actively used as an insecticide at our field sites (CICRA: M. Frederickson, pers.

Obs.; KSR: A. We extracted conidia from the commercial insecticide Botanigard ES (strain GHA) by first growing a suspension on 6.5% sabouraud dextrose agar plates in a darkened environment. To avoid contamination by other chemicals in Botanigard ES, conidia from these initial plates were not used directly. Instead, we collected these conidia and grew them on new plates; conidia arising from these secondary plates were used for survival assays. We suspended the conidia in a 0.05% solution of the surfactant Triton X-100 Sigma-Aldrich, Oakville, Ontario, Canada. We counted conidia densities using a haemocytometer and diluted the suspension to a concentration of 1 × 10 7 conidia/mL.

This was procedure was performed daily to ensure a fresh supply of conidia. Conidia suspensions were checked to be viable by plating them on 6.5% sabouraud dextrose agar plates. In the fungal and control treatments, respectively, we placed 0.5 μL of the conidia suspension or the same amount of a 0.05% solution of the surfactant only on ant thoraces.The number of workers and alates collected from each colony varied depending on the quantity available.

We used approximately equal numbers of each caste (i.e. Workers, males, gynes) for the fungal and control treatments (Table ).

For two species, Azteca sp. Rubra, we were unable to collect gynes (Table ). All individuals within a colony were exposed to the same fungal suspension and the same suspension was used for colonies and species collected on the same date. We placed each fungus-treated or control ant in a 50-mL falcon tube and kept the tubes at ambient temperatures (in Peru, ∼L12:D12 light cycle, ∼18–33°C) or in environmental chambers (in Canada, L14:D10 light cycle, 15–25°C). Ants were fed a standard artificial diet (Bhatkar and Whitcomb ) and provided with water via a damp piece of cotton.

We monitored ants every day for 14 days, recording the day of death if it occurred in this period. After an ant died, it was removed from its falcon tube and placed into a 2-mL microcentrifuge tube with a small piece of damp cotton to keep the environment moist. We then monitored the deceased ants for fungal growth daily for 7 days. Over 95% of ants that died in the fungal treatment and just 1% of ants that died in the control treatment had B. Bassiana hyphae growing out of their corpses within 7 days. This suggests that the differences in survival between the treatments were due to B.

Bassiana exposure. In total, we monitored the survival of 445 fungus-treated and 434 control ants. Body sizeWe measured ant body size on a different set of individuals from the ants used in the survival assays, but all were collected at the same time and from the same sites. Under a Leica M205 dissecting microscope with a digital micrometer, we measured the maximum length of the head, mesosoma, petiole, and gaster of each ant, and then summed these to get a measure of body length.

The number of individuals per caste per species varied from 1 to 20 (Table ). Although these measures are not from the individuals used in the survival assays, we have no reason to expect biases in body size among the ants used in the assays and the ants used for size measurements. Statistical analysisWe assessed variation among workers, gynes, and males in susceptibility to B. Bassiana only for species in which the fungal treatment significantly affected ant mortality. We tested whether the fungal treatment significantly affected the mortality of all nine species independently using a Cox proportional hazard model, with caste, treatment, and colony as main effects.

We found that the fungal treatment had no significant effect on Azteca sp. Nearcticus mortality.

We checked this by performing a likelihood ratio test between the full model and a model with just caste and colony (fungal treatment removed) for these two species. The full model did not provide a better fit for the data in Azteca sp. ( P = 0.1564) or L. Nearcticus ( P = 0.4039). This lack of response is largely attributable to the high baseline mortality of males in both species (3.33 days in Azteca sp.

And 4 days in L. Nearcticus, respectively), which greatly constrains the potential effect size of the fungal treatment.

Our study would be unable to adequately assess variation in susceptibility among castes for either species, and thus they were removed from further analyses.For the remaining seven species ( C. Mirabilis, C.

Longipilis, A. Octoarticulatus, O. Rudis, and B. Depilis), we used survival analysis to analyze our data, with the Cox proportional hazards model censored at 14 days. Treatment, caste, and species were included as main effects; site of origin (Peru or Canada), colony of origin, and type of nest (arboreal or ground) were included as random factors but were not significant predictors of survival and were removed from the final model. The regression coefficients for all three-way interactions (treatment × caste × species) were nonsignificant in the full model, so we included only the two-way interactions in the final model ( i.e., treatment × caste, treatment × species, and caste × species). A log-likelihood ratio test indicated that the full model, including three-way interactions, did not improve model fit, compared with a model with only two-way interaction terms ( P = 0.122). Eagle simulator free online.

We also created Kaplan–Meier curves for each caste with treatment as the main factor. Unlike our main statistical model, it pools all species together, but nonetheless provides a useful visualization of the results.We calculated hazard ratios (HR) from the coefficients in the Cox regression. The hazard ratio represents the probability of one group dying relative to another group at any point in time.

Values above one indicate an elevated risk of dying, while values below one indicate the opposite. We only use regression coefficients significant at the ≤0.05 level. By calculating the HR of gynes or males relative to workers in the control treatment, we can determine if baseline mortality differed among castes. However, we are most interested in whether mortality due to the fungal treatment differed among castes. To examine this, we calculated the treatment-HR (HR trt), which is the HR of the fungus-treated group relative to the control group for each caste and species individually; this takes into account any differences in baseline mortality between castes and species. We can then make comparison among HR trt values to determine whether they differed among castes within a species (Altman and Bland ). Significant differences in HR trt indicate that the fungus treatment had different effects on castes, suggesting differences in caste immunity.Lastly, we investigated the relationship between body size and immunity.

As mentioned previously, body size was measured from a different set of ants collected from the same colonies as those used for the survival assays and thus cannot be incorporated directly into the survival analysis. To investigate if body size is a predictor of immunity, we used Ln (HR trt) as a proxy for immunocompetence.

We fit an ANCOVA with average body size, caste, and species as main effects to determine whether these are significant predictors of Ln (HR trt). Due to limitations in statistical power, we could not create a full model that accounts for all two-way and three-way interactions. Instead, we fit the data to two separate models. Model 1: main effects and interaction effects of body size and caste with species as a cofactor.

Model 2: main effects and interaction effects of body size and species with caste as a cofactor. However, backwards elimination removed interaction effects from both Model 1 and Model 2. Log-likelihood ratio tests favored a reduced model without interaction effects in body size x caste ( Model 1; P = 0.475) and in body size x species ( Model 2; P = 0.826). We report results from this reduced model. We also report Bonferroni-corrected P-values to account for the use of HR trt in multiple tests.For all analyses, we utilized the downloadable packages, Survival and ggplot2, in the statistical software R (R Development Core Team RFFSC ).

ResultsFor seven of the nine species we tested, ants survived significantly longer in the control than in the fungus treatment. In these seven species, alates were more susceptible to the fungus treatment than workers. Kaplan–Meier plots provide a useful visualization of the different survival rates among castes under the control and fungus treatments (Fig. ), although these plots incorrectly pool all species together.

The results of the final Cox survival model, which includes species and its interactions with treatment and caste as factors, show that the fungus treatment significantly increased mortality ( β = 0.516, P = 0.026) and, more importantly, the effect of the fungus treatment differed among castes, as indicated by a significant interaction between fungus treatment and being a gyne ( β = 0.941, P. Kaplan–Meier curves (±95% confidence intervals) showing the proportion of control (closed circles) and fungus-treated (open circles) ants surviving over 14 days. Data from all species, excluding Azteca sp. And Lasius cf. Nearcticus, are combined and plots are separated by caste: (A) worker, (B) gyne, and (C) male. The figure illustrates the general trends in the results.To investigate these effects more fully, we calculated HRs and accounted for differences among species (Table, ). Within the control treatment, castes and species differed significantly in their baseline mortality.

Males had the highest baseline mortality, while gynes generally had similar or lower mortality relative to workers, depending on the species (Table, ). Although baseline mortality varied by castes and species, we focused on comparing the effects of the fungus treatment on mortality among castes within a particular species. Based on values of HR trt, we can sort our species into three groups. Within castes, there were no differences in HR trt among A. Octoarticulatus, B. Mirabilis, M. Rubra, and O.

Bauri (treatment × species interaction effects are nonsignificant; ), indicating that the fungus treatment had similar effects on workers, gynes, and males among these five species; these species make up Group 1. HR trt values for Camponotus longipilis and A. Rudis were quantitatively different from Group 1 and are shown separately (Fig. Hazard ratios (± standard error) of fungus-treated and control ants in each caste (HR trt) separated into three groups: (A) Allomerus octoarticulatus, Brachymyrmex depilis, Camponotus mirabilis, Myrmica rubra, and Odontomachus bauri (Group 1), (B) Camponotus longipilis and (C) Aphaenogaster cf. Asterisks indicate significant differences in HR trt between an alate caste and workers.In all three groups ( i.e., Group 1, C.

Longipilis, and A. Rudis), the fungus treatment caused alates to suffer higher mortality than workers, as shown by the significantly larger HR trt of both gynes and males relative to workers (Fig.

Among the species in Group 1, workers had a significantly lower HR trt than gynes ( z = 2.82, P adjusted = 0.014) and males ( z = 4.75, P adjusted.