Harpegnathos workers have the ability to found a colony on their own at least under laboratory conditions [39].
In addition, social isolation is known to be able to induce fertility in workers and the ability to found a new colony [39].
Such infections can harm queens during protracted winter hibernation (via accelerated loss of body mass) and reduce or eliminate their ability to found a new colony in the spring [45].
In M. genalis, body size is not directly linked to fecundity (Smith et al. 2009), though it may be correlated with reproductive success in other ways (e.g., ability to found or usurp a nest or compete for access to food).
In this third evolutionary step, the parasitic queen loses her ability to found new colonies but still produces her own workers once she takes over an established heterospecific nest.
Since sexual species of apomictic complexes are usually self-sterile (Dickinson et al., 2007; Hörandl, 2009 b ), their ability to found populations in geographically distant areas is limited by the need of mating partners and pollinators.
