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Updated: Jun 24, 2026

Collection and Long-Term Maintenance of Leaf-Cutting Ants (Atta) in Laboratory Conditions
Published on: August 30, 2022
Unicolonial ants: where do they come from, what are they and where are they going?
Heikki Helanterä1, Joan E Strassmann, Juli Carrillo
1Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, PO Box 65 (Viikinkaari 1), University of Helsinki, FI-00014 Helsinki, Finland. heikki.helantera@helsinki.fi
Abstract:
Unicolonial ant populations are the most extensive cooperative units known in nature, forming networks of interconnected nests extending sometimes hundreds of kilometers. Within such a supercolony, worker altruistic behavior might be maladaptive, because it seems to aid random members of the population instead of relatives. However, recent genetic and behavioral data show that, viewed on a sufficiently large scale, unicolonial ants do have colony boundaries that define very large kin groups. It seems likely that they are family groups that continue to express their kin-selected behavior as they grow to extreme sizes. However, at extreme sizes, kin selection theory predicts that these behaviors are maladapted and evolutionarily unstable, a prediction that is supported by their twiggy phylogenetic distribution.
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