About This Lesson
Discover how identical ant genes create queens or workers. Learn how genotype and environment shape ant development and phenotype.
In most ant colonies, there are three types, or castes, of ants—workers, drones and queens. Researchers have discovered that you can have two ant eggs with the exact same genes, and one can grow up to be a large queen that lives a long life laying eggs, while another becomes a smaller worker that only lives a few months. How is this possible? It turns out that not just nature, but also nurture, determines the future for larvae. Neuroscientist and evolutionary biologist Dr. Daniel Kronauer joins Science Friday Host Flora Lichtman to explain what scientists know.
