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SunburntWombat t1_iwa95m4 wrote

Reply to comment by PlaidBastard in Are there any K-Strategists insects? by [deleted]

Does that mean that social insects are k-strategist? Think about it. For one queen bee to beget the next queen bee, she produces an entire colony of workers and drones, which in turn put in an enormous amount of work to build and maintain a hive. That’s a lot of work just for the genes to be passed down to the next colony.

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KingoPants t1_iwahnfk wrote

I think its better to think of the colony as a single reproductive evolutionary unit, not as a collection of individuals. Ant colonies produce a large number of new queen's and drones for nuptial flights. Unless they are very lucky to find a good unoccupied spot most of the next generation perish.

In that sense ants don't put too much investment into reproduction.

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Cephandrius17 t1_iwadoo6 wrote

Maybe. They probably have fairly low infant mortality, since the babies are all being fed/cared for until they are mostly grown up.

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