Social conflict in ants

In ants, social conflicts, sex conflicts, or caste conflicts can exist. These conflicts occur within the same colony or supercolony at various levels: on an individual scale, between two or more specific ants; on the scale of sex, between males and females; or on the scale of different castes, between queens and workers. They should not be confused with ant wars, which involve different and opposing colonies or supercolonies. Even as larvae, ants can engage in conflicts, typically at the scale of the entire colony, against other individuals within the same colony. These social conflicts may involve the male-to-female ratio within the colony. For example, in some species, male and female larvae may engage in mutual cannibalism, often with males being more aggressive, to increase their chances of survival and growth. Conflicts can also arise between workers and queens over the management of the larvae produced; workers may favor female larvae, while queens increase the ratio of males they lay. These conflicts are generally more intense depending on the degree of relatedness between the ants involved. For instance, ants belonging to the same supercolony or a polygynous colony - meaning a colony with several queens - tend to engage more against workers or larvae from a queen different from their own. In species and colonies operating under the gamergate system, where each worker is a potential queen, ants engage in battles to become the sole or one of the few worker-queens capable of laying eggs.