Decision making by young queens of the harvester ant Messor semirufus while searching for a suitable nesting site

Motro, Michal; Motro, Uzi; Cohen, Dan

doi:10.1007/s00040-016-0508-9

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Open or disturbed sites are also preferred by some species of Atta (Vieira-Neto and Vasconcelos 2010), perhaps because the higher temperatures of open sites facilitate the development of the fungus garden (Camargo et al 2016). Queens of desert species (e.g., Pogonomyrmex, Messor), choose sites with soil characteristics that maximize their ability to get deep enough to avoid overheating (Johnson 1998, Motro andMotro 2016). Whether the queen is claustral (founds the colony without foraging as in Solenopsis, Atta, some species of Pogonomyrmex) or semiclaustral (continues to forage during colony founding as in P. occidentalis), will affect the sensitivity of the incipient colony to variation in the biotic environment (the availability of food and presence of predators).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The benefits of being big and diverse: early colony survival in harvester ants

Cole

Jordan

LaCour-Roy

et al. 2021

Ecology

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In sessile organisms such as plants and benthic invertebrates, founding propagules typically suffer extremely high rates of mortality due to both extrinsic and intrinsic factors. Many social insect species share similarities with these groups, but factors influencing early colony survival are relatively unstudied. We used a field experiment to measure the importance of environmental quality relative to intrinsic colony properties in the harvester ant, Pogonomyrmex occidentalis, by monitoring the survival of 584 experimental colonies. We measured survival of transplanted colonies over four months in each of three years (2014-2016) at a site in western Colorado. Colony survival was primarily determined by colony features. Multiple mating by the queen and larger colony size at the time of transplant increased survival, but queen size, maternal lineage and the composition of plant species in the vicinity of the colony did not. Food supplementation increased survival significantly when natural food was scarce, but was not consistently beneficial, in contrast to predictions. Our results emphasize the general importance of rapid growth and early attainment of large size in the survival of sessile species. However, attributes specific to ants that are a consequence of their sociality also strongly affected survival. Colonies with multiply-mated queens were more likely to survive over a wide range of circumstances, highlighting the importance of this trait even at the early stages of colony life.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%