Extraordinary starvation resistance in Temnothorax rugatulus (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) colonies: Demography and adaptive behavior

Rueppell, Olav; Kirkman, R. W.

doi:10.1007/s00040-005-0804-2

Cited by 51 publications

(45 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…If a colony is evicted or cannot find an open nest site, desiccation or predation (which pose significant challenges for many ant species (Hood and Tschinkel 1990;Holway 1998;Pinter-Wollman et al 2012;Gordon 2013)) may result in colony death. Additionally, T. rugatulus is exceptionally starvation resistant (Rueppell and Kirkman 2005). This may provide a buffer for colonies both when food is scarce as well as when it is too hot or dry to forage (as seen in harvester ants; (Pinter-Wollman et al 2012;Gordon 2013)).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Latitudinal variation in behaviors linked to risk tolerance is driven by nest-site competition and spatial distribution in the ant Temnothorax rugatulus

Bengston

2015

Behav Ecol Sociobiol

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Geographic range has long been noted to be associated with many organismic and ecological traits such as body size and species richness. However, much less is known about whether and how ecological variation across latitudinal gradients reflects behavioral variation. Ant colonies may also show behavioral variation, and Temnothorax rugatulus show a colony-level behavioral syndrome that seems to reflect risk tolerance across their North American range. While it is presumed that this pattern is the result of adaptation to local environmental conditions, which ecological factors are driving this variation are unknown. Here, we test if colony risk tolerance is affected by competition, predation, resource availability, or environmental stress at each site. Our results show that increased competition, specifically for nest sites, as well as increased spatial clustering of colonies predicts higher risk tolerance. Additionally, the spatial clustering of colonies influences the structure of the risk-taking syndrome, i.e., which colony-level behaviors are correlated and how strongly. This emphasizes the need for understanding large-scale geographic variation in behavior, as it may explain how ecological factors drive the evolution and maintenance of intraspecific behavioral variation across populations.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Latitudinal variation in behaviors linked to risk tolerance is driven by nest-site competition and spatial distribution in the ant Temnothorax rugatulus

Bengston

2015

Behav Ecol Sociobiol

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“…This species has been successfully used in behavioural studies in many contexts, meaning well-established methods for empirical studies exist (e.g. emigrations [48], group decision-making [49] and starvation resistance [50]). In this study, all ants were collected from seven field sites ranging from northern Washington, USA, to southeastern Arizona, USA, during July 2012 (figure 1).…”

Section: Materials and Methods (A) Model Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Be meek or be bold? A colony-level behavioural syndrome in ants

Bengston

Dornhaus

2014

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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Consistent individual variation in animal behaviour is nearly ubiquitous and has important ecological and evolutionary implications. Additionally, suites of behavioural traits are often correlated, forming behavioural syndromes in both humans and other species. Such syndromes are often described by testing for variation in traits across commonly described dimensions (e.g. aggression and neophobia), independent of whether this variation is ecologically relevant to the focal species. Here, we use a variety of ecologically relevant behavioural traits to test for a colony-level behavioural syndrome in rock ants (Temnothorax rugatulus). Specifically, we combine field and laboratory assays to measure foraging effort, how colonies respond to different types of resources, activity level, response to threat and aggression level. We find evidence for a colony level syndrome that suggests colonies consistently differ in coping stylesome are more risk-prone, whereas others are more risk-averse. Additionally, by collecting data across the North American range of this species, we show that environmental variation may affect how different populations maintain consistent variation in colony behaviour.

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“…Temnothorax rugatulus, for example, are widely considered to have a monomorphic worker caste (Rueppell and Kirkma, 2005). In such species, workers are usually assumed to be highly flexible in their behavior, although some individual differences in task preferences have been shown in Temnothorax (Dornhaus, 2008;Robinson, et al, 2009;Pinter-Wollman, et al, 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Morphological differences between extranidal and intranidal workers in the ant Temnothorax rugatulus, but no effect of body size on foraging distance

et al. 2014

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Most ant genera are thought to have monomorphic workers, indicating perhaps a high degree of flexibility in task allocation, and the well-studied genus Temnothorax is an example of this. However, considerable size variation may exist between individuals. In addition, though workers can show flexible behavior, it has been shown that individuals may consistently differ in their task profiles. Here we test whether body size variation among workers affects foraging behavior. Two main hypotheses were tested: first, whether larger ants forage at greater distance from the nest, and second, whether larger individuals show a higher propensity to work outside of the nest. Our results showed that ant body size does not significantly affect foraging distance. However, larger ants were more likely to be found outside the nest. Though Temnothorax ants are a common model system, this is the first study demonstrating task allocation based on body size, which is fixed in adults. Our study suggests that particularly small species may have to be examined carefully for body size variation before concluding that body size is uniform and therefore irrelevant for task allocation.

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Extraordinary starvation resistance in Temnothorax rugatulus (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) colonies: Demography and adaptive behavior

Cited by 51 publications

References 53 publications

Latitudinal variation in behaviors linked to risk tolerance is driven by nest-site competition and spatial distribution in the ant Temnothorax rugatulus

Latitudinal variation in behaviors linked to risk tolerance is driven by nest-site competition and spatial distribution in the ant Temnothorax rugatulus

Be meek or be bold? A colony-level behavioural syndrome in ants

Morphological differences between extranidal and intranidal workers in the ant Temnothorax rugatulus, but no effect of body size on foraging distance

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