Resume
Les ouvrières deMyrmica rubra s'agrègent autour de reines indigènes vivantes, et de ces mêmes reines mortes depuis 1 ou 2 heures. Les facteurs responsables de ces agrégations sont, au moins partiellement, de nature chimique. Ils ne sont ni gestuels, ni acoustiques, et la forme du corps des reines est incapable, à elle seule, d'agréger les fourmis.
Les facteurs chimiques agrégatifs propres aux reines sont peu volatiles et/ou bien adsorbés sur la cuticule des reines. Ils s'oxydent à l'air au bout de 3 ou 4 heures puis se dégradent encore d'une autre manière, progressivement, au cours du temps. Un passage de quelques minutes à une température voisine de 50°C les altère. Les solvants organiques, mais non l'eau distillée, les dénature rapidement et les extraient peut-être. Enfin, ces facteurs chimiques se répartissent uniformément sur toute la surface externe du corps des reines, et ils ne semblent guère provenir des glandes métapleurales.
Après avoir détaillé nos travaux, puis discuté des renseignements acquis, nous posons des questions et hypothèses à envisager dans la suite de notre étude.
Summary
Workers ofMyrmica rubra cluster around living queens from their own colony. Workers also cluster around these same queens after they are killed and kept for one or two hours. The suggestion is that the factors causing these aggregations are at least partly chemical, for dead queens are unable to give movement or acoustical signals. Also, the form of the queens'body is unable to induce the clustering response.
The chemical signals causing aggregation, emitted by the queen, are not very volatile and/or they are well adsorbed by her cuticle. They oxidise rapidly after 3–4 hours exposure to the air and they continue to denature, losing their ethological activity, for the subsequent 2–3 days. They deteriorate when warmed to a temperature of 50°C for a few minutes. Organic solvents denature them rapidly and may extract them whereas distilled water has no effect upon them. The chemical factors are uniformly distributed over the external surface of the queen's body and it seems that they are not produced by the metapleural glands.
The experiments, producing the above results, are detailed and discussed raising questions and hypotheses that we will consider in future work.
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Coglitore, C., Cammaerts, M.C. Étude du Pouvoir Agrégatif des Reines deMyrmica rubra L. . Ins. Soc 28, 353–370 (1981). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02224193
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02224193