What term describes the yellow crazy ant's system featuring multiple fertile queens?
Answer
Polygyny
The social organization underpinning the success of the yellow crazy ant invasion is rooted in polygyny. This biological structure means that the colony hosts and is governed by multiple fertile queens, contrasting sharply with many ant species that rely solely on a single queen for reproduction. The presence of numerous queens drastically enhances the colony's reproductive capacity, allowing them to lay eggs at an accelerated rate and distribute reproductive efforts across a wider area simultaneously. This multi-queen structure is instrumental in the rapid, exponential growth that leads to the formation of enormous supercolonies, granting them superior competitive advantages over single-queen species.
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