The evolution of expendability: Why some ants traded armor for numbers

Ants with lots of workers tend to put less energy into making them armored.

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[matheme]

Worker bees and worker ants are like cells of a superorganism. They are all clones so no genetic diversity is lost when one clone dies, just as no diversity dies when you slough off skin cells. The superorganism saves resources by optimizing the clones for the environment it exists in. Those resources can then be used to create more genetically distinct offspring. Some of which may have an even more optimized body plan for its worker units.

Worker bees are in fact half-sisters, their mother is the Queen bee who mated with 10-20 drones before retreating into the hive to lay eggs for the rest of her live (or until she leaves the hive with about half the swarm to settle somewhere less busy). One of the remaining fertilized eggs can then become a new queen (Unfertilized eggs become drones). So in the end not so much cloning but regular genetics, just with an unusual number of sisters... The general idea of shared genetics within a colony is correct though.