• DOI:10.1086/399512
• Corpus ID: 4560071

The Origin and Evolution of Polymorphism in Ants

@article{Wilson1953TheOA,
  title={The Origin and Evolution of Polymorphism in Ants},
  author={Edward O. Wilson},
  journal={The Quarterly Review of Biology},
  year={1953},
  volume={28},
  pages={136 - 156}
}

• E. Wilson
• Published 1 June 1953
• Biology
• The Quarterly Review of Biology

IN THE biological literature of the past two decades the term polymorphism has been applied usually to one or the other of two almost completely separate phenomena. In genetics it is defined as the condition of two or more distinctive and discontinuous genetic types existing in a population (Ford, 1940). In the study of social insects it is defined as the existence within an individual colony of two or more phases or castes belonging to the same sex, without particular regard to their genetic or environmental origin. On the basis of usage by specialists on all groups of social insects a caste is properly defined as a differentiated morphological form with a specialized function, or at least the infrequent relict of such a form. It has been the practice of some entomologists to consider all abnormal, recurrent variants as castes and part and parcel of the species' colonial polymorphism. Actually, these cannot be considered apart from similar variants in non-social insects, and their inclusion obviously breaks down the original meaning of polymorphism by neglecting its relation to social organization. The following paper is an attempt to summarize our existing knowledge of polymorphism in ants and to reinterpret it in terms of the hitherto unappreciated but tremendously important underlying features of adult allometry and intracolonial size frequency distribution. [In its broad senseallometry is defined as the regular disproportionate ontogenetic growth or adult variation of two organs or linear dimensions related as y = bxk, where k is the equilibrium constant and the slope of the log-log plot of the curve. A fuller explanation is offered in a subsequent section.] The study of the latter phenomena has of late been shedding unexpected new light upon the nature and phylogenetic development of polymorphism. It is felt that further work in this direction will continue to yield information significant not only for the special fields of ant taxonomy and ant sociology but also for the general province of growth physiology.