The authors found that enslaved Formica colonies were more genetically and chemically diverse than their free-living counterparts. The researchers think these differences are likely caused by seasonal raids to steal pupa from several adjacent host colonies.
"When free-living Formica ants are kidnapped into the Polyergus colony, they enter a society that [comprises] kidnapped ants from many other Formica colonies. Here, we show that this rich social environment alters the behaviors displayed by the enslaved ants," said Neil Tsutsui.
The different social environments of enslaved and free-living Formica also appear to affect their recognition behaviors: enslaved Formica workers were less aggressive towards non-nest mates than were free-living Formica. Future studies are needed to understand the underlying mechanisms, but the authors suggest their findings indicate that parasitism by P. breviceps alters both the chemical and genetic context in which their hosts develop, leading to changes in how they recognize nest mates.
Our study contrasts with other studies that compared the nestmate recognition systems of monogynous (single queen) with those of polygynous colonies (multiple queens). Martin et al. [71] found that Formica execta colonies with higher genetic diversity (polygynous) had reduced nestmate recognition cue diversity compared to those that were less genetically diverse (monogynous).
https://archive.is/eqPSD
The Effect of Social Parasitism by Polyergus breviceps on the Nestmate Recognition System of Its Host, Formica altipetens