Editing Formica exsecta (section)

===Sex allocation===
''F. exsecta'' is a [[eusocial]] species, displaying a [[dominance hierarchy]] among its individual colony members. Amongst the narrow-headed ant species, the two different types of colony structure are: [[monogyny]], one queen per colony, and [[Gyne|polygyny]], more than one queen per colony.<ref name=Sundstrom>{{cite journal|last=Sundström|first=Liselotte|author2=Keller, Laurent|author3=Chapuisat, Michel|journal=Evolution|date=1 July 2003|volume=57|issue=7|pages=1552–1561|doi=10.1111/j.0014-3820.2003.tb00363.x|pmid=12940360|url=https://serval.unil.ch/notice/serval:BIB_8AD33563F155|title=Inbreeding and sex-biased gene flow in the ant ''Formica exsecta''|s2cid=22960363|access-date=4 July 2019|archive-date=16 May 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240516204927/https://serval.unil.ch/en/notice/serval:BIB_8AD33563F155|url-status=live}}</ref> Most commonly, one of these two different types is prevalent within a population. These two types of colonies differ not only in the queen's mating system, but also in the organization of types of offspring and its hierarchy system. For a polygynous colony to thrive, it must adjust its sex allocation practices contingent on the abundance of resources. Colonies produce a greater percentage of male offspring when restraint on resource availability exists, as well as when the colony has a larger number of queens.<ref>{{cite book|last=West|first=Nicholas B. Davies, John R. Krebs, Stuart A.|title=An introduction to behavioural ecology|publisher=Wiley-Blackwell|location=Oxford|isbn=978-1-4051-1416-5|edition=4th|date=2012-04-02}}</ref> The opposite scenario is also found to be true. More female offspring are produced when an abundance of resources exists, as well as when the colony has a smaller number of queens. On average, a colony's sex ratio is estimated to be 5.8% female, or one female for every 17.2 male offspring.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Brown|first=W. D.|author2=Keller, L.|title=Colony sex ratios vary with queen number but not relatedness asymmetry in the ant Formica exsecta|journal=Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences|date=7 September 2000|volume=267|issue=1454|pages=1751–1757|doi=10.1098/rspb.2000.1206|pmid=12233773|pmc=1690740}}</ref> This heavily male offspring-based sex ratio displays an obvious deviation from [[Fisher's principle|Fisher's theory of 1:1 sex ratio]].

In colonies in which the male offspring are favored, workers tend to execute most of the female [[gynes]]. In contrast, colonies where an excess of female gynes is produced, which is more than necessary for the simple act of queen replacement, they are all accepted into the colony to eliminate the possibility of [[parasitism]] by unrelated queens from neighboring populations.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Brown|first=W. D.|author2=Liautard, C.|author3=Keller, L.|title=Sex-ratio dependent execution of queens in polygynous colonies of the ant ''Formica exsecta''|journal=Oecologia|date=January 2003|volume=134|issue=1|pages=12–7|pmid=12647173|doi=10.1007/s00442-002-1072-8|bibcode=2003Oecol.134...12B|s2cid=19403070|url=https://serval.unil.ch/resource/serval:BIB_E94414CC9809.P001/REF.pdf|access-date=2019-12-13|archive-date=2024-05-16|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240516204846/https://serval.unil.ch/resource/serval:BIB_E94414CC9809.P001/REF.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>