Effects of colony-level variation on competitive ability in the invasive Argentine ant

Holway, David A.; Case, Ted J.

doi:10.1006/anbe.2000.1698

Cited by 87 publications

(85 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…These results are similar to those observed by Buczkowski and Bennett (2006), where the majority of workers within the nest closest to the food source displayed evidence of feeding after 3 h. Other pest ant species, such as L. humile, commonly utilize multiple nests to forage effectively in areas that contain ephemeral and dispersed food resources (Heller et al 2008). A higher rate of resource collection and distribution can also be attributed to an increased level of recruitment across a polydomous colony's expansive territory (Holldobler and Lumsden 1980, Human and Gordon 1996, Holway and Case 2001. It is possible that polydomous colonies with localized resources are less likely to disperse food across the colony as quickly and efficiently, due to social and physical constraints, such as recruitment and trail crowdedness.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Foraging Arena Size and Structural Complexity Affect the Dynamics of Food Distribution in Ant Colonies

Buczkowski

VanWeelden

2010

env. entom.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Foraging Arena Size and Structural Complexity Affect the Dynamics of Food Distribution in Ant Colonies

Buczkowski

VanWeelden

2010

env. entom.

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“…In Argentine ants, small colony size is associated with reductions in foraging activity, resource discovery rate, resource retrieval rate, resource defense ability (intraspecific and interspecific), brood production, worker production, interspecific competitive ability, and propagule survival (28,32,42,43). It remains to be seen, however, if the observed asymmetries in aggression and mortality between individual workers translate directly into differences in performance or productivity at the level of entire colonies.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Genetic diversity, asymmetrical aggression, and recognition in a widespread invasive species

Tsutsui

Suarez

Grosberg

2003

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

220

204

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The evolution and persistence of cooperative social units depends on the ability to distinguish group members from nonmembers. The precision of discrimination, in turn, relies on variation in the labels that individuals use to recognize group members. However, this same variation can be selected against if individuals that are rejected as nonmembers incur a high cost. Here we provide evidence that selection against individuals from genetically diverse groups has contributed to the formation of the unicolonial colony structure that characterizes introduced populations of the invasive Argentine ant (Linepithema humile). Studies in both the laboratory and the field showed that individuals from less genetically diverse colonies attack individuals from more diverse colonies and that attackers survived agonistic encounters more than six times as often as recipients of aggression. This selection, in concert with reductions in genetic diversity after a founder event, likely creates a barrier to the establishment of new, genetically diverse introductions from the native range and may reduce genetic diversity within established populations in the introduced range.T he organization of individuals into cooperative social groups is one of the major transitions in the history of life (1). Sociality allows group members to increase their direct fitness through behaviors such as the division of labor, coordinated foraging, or cooperative breeding (2). Additionally, when social groups consist of relatives, individuals that direct altruistic behavior toward group members can also increase their indirect fitness (3-5). To realize these benefits of sociality, however, individuals must be able to distinguish precisely between group members and nonmembers. Consequently, natural selection has favored the evolution of a wide variety of recognition systems that regulate the expression of behaviors ranging from intense aggression to lifelong pair bonds, are built on different sensory modalities, and use a diverse array of signals and decision rules (6, 7).Many social insects use odor cues (labels) to distinguish colony members from nonmembers (refs. 7-13; see below). These labels identify each individual's colony of origin and are used to form a recognition template against which it compares labels of conspecifics (7-13). A mismatch between an individual's template and the label of another individual generally triggers rejection (7-13). When odor cues are genetically based, the precision of recognition fundamentally depends on the levels of polymorphism and allelic frequencies at loci conferring these labels. For example, when two individuals share a label that is common in a population, there is a high probability that the allele is shared by chance, rather than by descent. However, as the number and rarity of alleles increases, so, too, will the likelihood that individuals sharing an allele will be closely related (or members of the same colony) (14). Consequently, negative (or inverse) frequency-dependent selection will favor the prol...

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“…The way in which this is achieved, however, is largely undescribed and the traits that characterise good discoverers are a topic of current investigation. It has been hypothesised that colonies may maximise discovery by deploying a larger number of scouts because more scouts mean greater environmental coverage (Johnson et al, 1987;Schmid-Hempel, 1987;Holway & Case, 2001;Roulston & Silverman, 2002). Indeed, having more scouts outside the nest leads to more rapid resource discovery (Pearce, 2008) and, in polydomous species, forager number can potentially interact with nest number to enhance coverage and discovery (Hölldobler & Lumsden, 1980;Traniello & Levings, 1986;Pfeiffer & Linsenmair, 1998;Holway & Case, 2001).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It has been hypothesised that colonies may maximise discovery by deploying a larger number of scouts because more scouts mean greater environmental coverage (Johnson et al, 1987;Schmid-Hempel, 1987;Holway & Case, 2001;Roulston & Silverman, 2002). Indeed, having more scouts outside the nest leads to more rapid resource discovery (Pearce, 2008) and, in polydomous species, forager number can potentially interact with nest number to enhance coverage and discovery (Hölldobler & Lumsden, 1980;Traniello & Levings, 1986;Pfeiffer & Linsenmair, 1998;Holway & Case, 2001). However, this hypothesis has been put into question by the fact that differences among species in discovery ability are more influenced by characteristics of individual foragers than by the number of foragers in the vicinity of the resource (Pearce, 2008), highlighting the need to examine forager discovery ability in greater detail.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Resource discovery in ant communities: do food type and quantity matter?

Pearce-Duvet

Feener

2010

Ecological Entomology

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Abstract. 1. Omnivorous woodland ant species trade off between the ability to find and behaviourally control food resources. Dominant species can limit the ability of subordinates to harvest certain food items. However, subordinate species, by being faster discoverers, could gain access to such food items by arriving at them first.2.In this study, we tested the hypothesis that resource-directed discovery occurs in ant communities and that good discoverers preferentially discover high value resources. We did this by measuring time to discovery and the number of discoveries of high and low levels of two resource types, crickets and honey, for species occurring in Texas and Arizona woodland ant communities.3. Ants discovered resources roughly 10 times faster in Texas than in Arizona. They discovered crickets more rapidly than honey in both communities, but there was no difference in the discovery of different resource levels. We also found that species were not biased in their discovery of different resource types or levels.4. These results provide indirect evidence that discovery is directed by resource stimuli but that such directedness does not impact interspecific exploitative competition.

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Effects of colony-level variation on competitive ability in the invasive Argentine ant

Cited by 87 publications

References 53 publications

Foraging Arena Size and Structural Complexity Affect the Dynamics of Food Distribution in Ant Colonies

Foraging Arena Size and Structural Complexity Affect the Dynamics of Food Distribution in Ant Colonies

Genetic diversity, asymmetrical aggression, and recognition in a widespread invasive species

Resource discovery in ant communities: do food type and quantity matter?

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