Indian jumping ants (Harpegnathos saltator) are unusual in that worker ants can, in the absence of a queen, make a switch to a queen-like status in order to reproduce and keep the colony going. In a study published November 4 in Cell, researchers found that the shift from worker to queen is facilitated by the response of transcription factor Krüppel homolog 1 (Kr-h1) to hormones that are present at different levels in queen and worker ants.
“As a field, we’re very interested in understanding the evolution of sociality,” says Tali Reiner Brodetzki, who studies social behavior in ants at Rutgers University–Camden in New Jersey and was not involved in the work. Most social insects can’t change their caste, she adds, but studying this plasticity could yield insights into how other types of plasticity work.
Previous work has shown that Indian jumping ants can change the size of their brains depending ...
