Individual and Group Personalities Characterise Consensus Decision‐Making in an Ant

Cronin, Adam L.

doi:10.1111/eth.12386

Cited by 24 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 71 publications

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“…How these preferences are maintained within a group and how they affect the collective behavior are key questions for the understanding of the behavioral ecology of gregarious species. The presence of personalities within a group has been seen to have an important impact on the performance of the group during collective behaviors ( Brown and Irving 2014 , Cronin 2015 ). There is no doubt that such individual variability also influences collective fleeing behavior.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Individual Thigmotactic Preference Affects the Fleeing Behavior of the American Cockroach (Blattodea: Blattidae)

Salazar

Planas‐Sitjà

Sempo

et al. 2018

Journal of Insect Science

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Positive thigmotactic behavior is associated with the ability to hide from predators and is important to explain aggregation and collective patterns in various animals. For example, this behavior has been observed in woodlice, domiciliary cockroaches, ants, and fish. Lately, research on different species is focused on the importance of animal personality for ecological and evolutionary processes, individual fitness and group cohesion. In fact, it is generally expected to find some degree of interindividual consistent differences for a behavior, unless specific circumstances, like predator attacks, hide the presence of personalities. In this research, we analyzed the individual thigmotactic preference of domiciliary cockroaches (Periplaneta americana (Linnaeus, 1758) (Blattodea: Blattidae)) and how it affected the fleeing behavior of isolated individuals inside a shelter after receiving a light stimulus. We notably highlight how isolated individuals show different consistent preferences regarding their position in the shelter, which is due to the individual thigmotaxis level, before the fleeing behavior. During the fleeing itself, cockroaches nearer to the wall, and therefore with more positive thigmotaxis, showed slower reaction lantencies to the stimulus. We propose that thigmotaxis homogenizes the interindividual differences among individuals and is important to explain the individual and collective fleeing behavior.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Individual Thigmotactic Preference Affects the Fleeing Behavior of the American Cockroach (Blattodea: Blattidae)

Salazar

Planas‐Sitjà

Sempo

et al. 2018

Journal of Insect Science

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“…Colony relocation represents one process that is regulated at both the group and individual level in social insects, and, indeed, wide variation exists among species in relation to how migration effort is assigned. Examples range from varying distributions of worker effort within colonies, as seen in the ant Myrmecina nipponica (Cronin, 2015), to extreme cases where a single individual is key to overall collective organisation, such as in the queenless Ponerine, Diacamma indicum (Sumana and Sona, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A social mechanism facilitates ant colony emigrations over different distances

O’Shea-Wheller

Wilson-Aggarwal

Edgley

et al. 2016

Journal of Experimental Biology

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Behavioural responses enable animals to react rapidly to fluctuating environments. In eusocial organisms, such changes are often enacted at the group level, but may be organised in a decentralised fashion by the actions of individuals. However, the contributions of different group members are rarely homogeneous, and there is evidence to suggest that certain 'keystone' individuals are important in shaping collective responses. Accordingly, investigations of the dynamics and structuring of behavioural changes at both the group and individual level are crucial for evaluating the relative influence of different individuals. Here, we examined the composition of tandem running behaviour during colony emigrations in the ant species Temnothorax albipennis. Tandem running is modulated in response to emigration distance, with more runs being conducted when a more distant nest site must be reached. We show that certain individuals are highly active in the tandem running process, attempting significantly more work in the task. Contrary to expectations, however, such individuals are in fact no more successful at conducting tandem runs than their less active nest mates. Instead, it seems that when more tandem runs are required, colonies rely on greater recruitment of workers into the process. The implications of our study are that in some cases, even when apparently 'key' individuals exist within a group, their relative contribution to task performance may be far from decisive.

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“…In this study, the three treatments were performed sequentially rather than randomly because of logistical limitations, and in some cases, colonies performed three emigrations. Previous studies of ant emigration have indicated that emigration performance may improve (faster emigrations) over replicated events, presumably because of a learning effect (Langridge et al., 2004), though this has not been found in other species (Cronin, 2015). We found no evidence of a learning effect, though cannot rule out the possibility that final emigrations (marked choice experiments) benefitted in some way from experience in earlier emigrations.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Collective decision‐making, caste roles and sequential transport during colony emigration in the small carpenter ant, Camponotus yamaokai

Purbayan

Cronin

2021

Ethology

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Effective coordination of group actions underlies the success of group‐living organisms. Making decisions collectively is a crucial step in executing behaviours affecting the whole group. In social insects, decision‐making is typically achieved in a self‐organised manner and incorporates a quorum process, which can improve decision accuracy and be tailored to different conditions. Studies of the nest‐selection process in different social insect species have revealed remarkable consistency in the mode of decision‐making despite marked differences in life history and colony size. However, an often‐overlooked aspect of this decision process is how it might be influenced by diversity in behavioural propensity among colony members. Higher diversity can improve collective processes, but could also represent a cost if certain classes of individual do not contribute to the cooperative activity. Many ant species exhibit caste polymorphism, with different worker castes specialised to different functions. These castes could thus enhance or erode the collective decision process depending on whether they contribute to this process or not. In this study, we explore the process of colony emigration and nest‐site choice in the small carpenter ant Camponotus yamaokai, a species with two distinct worker castes. We show that this species is likely to use a quorum decision process facilitated by navigation with chemical trails. Both major and minor castes contributed to the collective decision and emigration process. However, although major workers comprised 24% of the colony on average, they were 5.5 times less likely than expected to be involved in assessing new nests and 4.6 times less likely than expected to contribute to brood transport. This may represent a previously unrecognised cost to the colony in the emigration process. In addition, we document the first observations of sequential brood transfer during emigration behaviour and speculate upon the function of this behaviour.

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Individual and Group Personalities Characterise Consensus Decision‐Making in an Ant

Cited by 24 publications

References 71 publications

Individual Thigmotactic Preference Affects the Fleeing Behavior of the American Cockroach (Blattodea: Blattidae)

Individual Thigmotactic Preference Affects the Fleeing Behavior of the American Cockroach (Blattodea: Blattidae)

A social mechanism facilitates ant colony emigrations over different distances

Collective decision‐making, caste roles and sequential transport during colony emigration in the small carpenter ant, Camponotus yamaokai

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