EFFECT OF ORPHANING ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF QUEEN ATTRACTION AND ON WORKER BEHAVIORAL REPERTOIRE IN CATAGLYPHIS-CURSOR (HYMENOPTERA, FORMICIDAE)

The effectiveness of queen attraction towards workers, foragers or nurses, was measured in Cataglyphis cursor. Effect of queenlessness was studied four months after the partition of the society, just before hibernation, when the reproductive activity had stopped. The results show first that the maternal queen is equally attractive to foragers and nurses. Secondly, that queenlessness induced an impairing of the effectiveness of queen attraction towards either foragers or nurses. The activity of the nurses and the foragers is greatly reduced when the queen is missing. This may be only partially explained by differences in queenright and queenless colony odor. The Cataglyphis cursor queen is not the only source of colonial odor. The queen is more important in the infinitely complex organization of the society. After the queen removal, the observed behavioral drift is an expression of the social flexibility which allows the normal society ergonomy.