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Science 2 December 1983:
Vol. 222. no. 4627, pp. 1027 - 1029
DOI: 10.1126/science.222.4627.1027
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Articles

Nestmate and Kin Recognition in Interspecific Mixed Colonies of Ants

NORMAN F. CARLIN 1 and BERT HÖLLDOBLER 1

1 Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139

Recognition of nestmates and discrimination against aliens is the rule in the social insects. The principal mechanism of nestmate recognition in carpenter ants (Camponotus) appears to be odor labels or "discriminators" that originate from the queen and are distributed among, and learned by, all adult colony members. The acquired odor labels are sufficiently powerful to produce indiscriminate acceptance among workers of different species raised together in artificially mixed colonies and rejection of genetic sisters reared by different heterospecific queens.

Submitted on April 22, 1983
Accepted on September 19, 1983


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