Diversity in identity: behavioral flexibility, dominance, and age polyethism in a clonal ant

Bernadou, Abel; Busch, Josefine; Heınze, Jürgen

doi:10.1007/s00265-015-1950-9

Cited by 57 publications

(75 citation statements)

References 53 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Ants that possess greater fat reserves might also survive longer when facing adverse conditions. Measures of fat content in our study confirmed the pattern of 'lean forager-corpulent inner-nest worker', which is common in social insects (Seeley, 1995;Schulz et al, 1998;Markiewicz and O'Donnell, 2001;Tschinkel, 1998;Blanchard et al, 2000;Smith et al, 2011;Tibbetts et al, 2011;Robinson et al, 2012;Mersch et al, 2013;Bernadou et al, 2015) and suggests that inner-nest workers survived longer due to their high fat reserves. When fed an imbalanced diet, foragers that remained foragers lost a considerable amount of fat and foragers that reverted to inner-nest tasks did not gain any fat.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 69%

“…Although our results confirmed that the link between age and task is flexible in ants (e.g. Sendova-Franks and Franks, 1993;Blanchard et al, 2000;Dolezal et al, 2012;Bernadou et al, 2015), not unexpectedly there was a slight increase in mortality rate with chronological age, with foragers that reverted to inner-nest workers dying somewhat sooner than 'true' inner-nest workers. This difference could be due to the fact that fat reserves were lower in foragers that reverted to inner-nest workers than in inner-nest workers that remained inner-nest workers.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 68%

“…Second, there is a further division of labour among workers depending on genetic components, morphology, age and physiological status (Hölldobler and Wilson, 1990). In many species, for example, older and lean workers are the ones in charge of foraging for the entire colony, whereas younger and corpulent individuals stay in the nest (Seeley, 1995;Schulz et al, 1998;Markiewicz and O'Donnell, 2001;Tschinkel, 1998;Blanchard et al, 2000;Smith et al, 2011;Tibbetts et al, 2011;Robinson et al, 2012;Mersch et al, 2013;Bernadou et al, 2015). Nevertheless, division of labour among workers remains highly flexible in social insects.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Nevertheless, division of labour among workers remains highly flexible in social insects. Foragers in experimentally manipulated colonies might revert to inner-nest tasks -a behavioural shift sometimes associated with an increase in lipid reserves Nakata, 1995;Amdam et al, 2005;Baker et al, 2012;Kuszewska and Woyciechowski, 2013;Bernadou et al, 2015). Lastly, social insects function as long-lived 'super-organisms' that are often confronted with food shortage or food imbalance due to annual seasonal fluctuations in food availability (Cook et al, 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Resistance to nutritional stress in ants: when being fat is advantageous

Dussutour

Poissonnier

Buhl

et al. 2016

Journal of Experimental Biology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In ants, nutrient acquisition for the whole colony relies on a minority of workers, the foragers, which are often old and lean. Some studies have shown that the link between age, physiology and foraging activity is more flexible than once thought, especially in response to colony or environmental perturbations. This great plasticity offers the intriguing possibility to disentangle the effect of age, behaviour and physiology on the ants' abilities to cope with nutritional stresses. In this paper, we first looked at the capacity of groups of foragers and inner-nest workers to resist starvation and macronutrient imbalance. Second, we investigated whether behavioural task reversion modified the tolerance to nutritional stresses and by extension, changed mortality rate. We found that inner-nest workers live longer than foragers under nutritional stresses but not under optimal conditions. The reversion from foraging to inner-nest activities is followed by an increase in fat content and longevity. Finally, we demonstrated that changes in fat content associated with behavioural transition are highly flexible and strongly correlated to tolerance of nutritional stress. Our results have considerable implications for our understanding of the population dynamics of social insects under adverse nutritional conditions.

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 69%

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 68%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Resistance to nutritional stress in ants: when being fat is advantageous

Dussutour

Poissonnier

Buhl

et al. 2016

Journal of Experimental Biology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Whether worker fresh weight at eclosion has an influence on their behavior, for example, concerning division of labor remains to be studied. At least fat content has been shown to affect division of labor in social insects, with foragers being generally less fat than nurses (e.g., Blanchard, Orledge, Reynolds, & Franks, 2000;Toth, Kantarovich, Meisel, & Robinson, 2005;Bernadou, Busch, & Heinze, 2015).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Methuselah’s daughters: Paternal age has little effect on offspring number and quality in Cardiocondyla ants

Heınze

Hanoeffner

Delabie

et al. 2018

Ecology and Evolution

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Male age may directly or indirectly affect the fitness of their female mating partners and their joint progeny. While in some taxa of insects, old males make better mates and fathers, young males excel in others. Males of most social Hymenoptera are relatively short lived and because of testis degeneration have only a limited sperm supply. In contrast, the wingless fighter males of the ant Cardiocondyla obscurior live for several weeks and produce sperm throughout their lives. Wingless males engage in lethal combat with rival males and the winner of such fights can monopolize mating with all female sexuals that emerge in their nests over a prolonged timespan. Here, we investigate if male age has an influence on sperm quality, the queen's lifespan and productivity, and the size and weight of their offspring. Queens mated to one‐week or six‐week‐old males did not differ in life expectancy and offspring production, but the daughters of young males were slightly heavier than those of old males. Our data suggest negligible reproductive senescence of C. obscurior males even at an age, which only few of them reach. This matches the reproductive strategy of Cardiocondyla ants, in which freshly emerging female sexuals rarely have the option to mate with males other than the one present in their natal nest.

show abstract