Nest defense and early production of the major workers in the dimorphic ant Colobopsis nipponicus (Wheeler) (Hymenoptera : Formicidae)

Hasegawa, Eisuke

doi:10.1007/bf00171658

Cited by 41 publications

(49 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…This has been shown in species where workers are highly variable morphologically or where a discrete soldier caste exists such as harvester ants (Wilson 1984;Arnan et al 2011), turtle ants (Powell 2009) and leaf-cutter ants (Evison et al 2008) among others (e.g. Porter and Tschinkel 1986;Foster 1990;Hasegawa 1993a;Hasegawa 1993b;Passera et al 1996;Harvey et al 2000;Perry et al 2004;Toth and Duffy 2008;Grüter et al 2012). However, Fjerdingstad and Crozier (2006) highlighted the fact that worker size diversity is limited in the majority of ant species, including some of the most successful species.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Decreasing worker size diversity does not affect colony performance during laboratory challenges in the ant Temnothorax nylanderi

Colin

Doums

Péronnet

et al. 2017

Behav Ecol Sociobiol

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Authors' contributions TC collected colonies, reared them, performed the experiments and statistical analyses, and wrote the manuscript. CD designed the study, contributed to statistical analysis and wrote the manuscript. RP collected colonies, and assisted in rearing and experiments. MM designed the study, wrote the manuscript, and supervised the project. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. Within-colony phenotypic diversity can play an essential role in some eusocial insect taxa by increasing the performance of division of labor, thereby increasing colony fitness. Empirical studies of the effect of phenotypic diversity on colony fitness mostly focused on species with discrete castes (workers, soldiers) or with continuously and highly morphologically variable workers, which is not the most common case. Indeed, most species exhibit continuous but limited worker morphological variation. It is still unclear whether this variation impacts colony fitness. To test this, we reduced the worker size diversity in 25 colonies of the ant Temnothorax nylanderi and compared their performances to 25 control colonies. We reared these colonies in the laboratory and measured the effect of treatment (reduced diversity or control) and colony size (number of workers) on colony performance at six challenges, as well as on worker mortality and brood production. The reduction of worker size diversity did not affect colony performance nor mortality and brood production. As expected, colony performance and brood production increased with colony size. These results suggest that worker size diversity may not be under positive selection in this species, but rather the product of a lack of developmental canalization. We propose that social life could decrease the selective pressures maintaining developmental canalization, subsequently leading to higher size diversity without necessarily increasing colony performance. 4 Significance statementIn social insects, nestmate size diversity is commonly thought to improve division of labour and colony performance. This has been clearly demonstrated in species with high size diversity, either discrete or continuous, but this is unclear in most of the social insects that exhibit low size diversity. We experimentally decreased worker size diversity in the ant Temnothorax nylanderi, a species with low worker size diversity. Reducing worker size diversity had no effect on colony performance, worker mortality or brood production. Our findings support the hypothesis that low size diversity is merely the product of developmental noise and is not necessarily adaptive. We propose that social life could relax the selective pressures maintaining developmental and social canalizations, subsequently leading to size diversity.5

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Decreasing worker size diversity does not affect colony performance during laboratory challenges in the ant Temnothorax nylanderi

Colin

Doums

Péronnet

et al. 2017

Behav Ecol Sociobiol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…We are unaware of any experimental tests of this assumption. To this end, small twig-nesting species may allow us to manipulate, transplant, and monitor colonies in the field (Hasegawa 1993).…”

Section: Plant Defense Theory and Caste Ecologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Caste and the ecology of large and small colonies Studies of caste allocation have focused on large-colony species like the leaf-cutters (Atta, Wilson 1983), army ants (Eciton and Neivamyrrnex, Schneirla 1957Schneirla , 1961 and fire ants (Porter and Tschinkel 1985;Tschinkel 1993) although this emphasis is waning (Beshers and Traniello 1994;Hasegawa 1993). Most ant species have colonies numbering fewer than 1000 and the tropical Pheidole are an order of magnitude smaller than their temperate zone counterparts (Kaspari and Vargo 1995).…”

Section: Plant Defense Theory and Caste Ecologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Caste allocation in litter Pheidole: lessons from plant defense theory

Kaspari

Byrne

1995

Behav Ecol Sociobiol

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Springer-Verlag 1995 M i c h a e l K a s p a r i • M a r g a r e t M . B y r n e A b s t r a c t The allocation to growth, defense and reproduction varies in social insects within a species' life cycle and between species. A life cycle model (Oster and Wilson 1978) generally failed to predict caste allocation in small litter-nesting colonies of NeotropicalPheidole. Two of its assumptions were often invalid:food was unlikely to be limiting in four of five populations, and sexual biomass production accelerated, not decelerated, with colony size in three of five populations. One of five Pheidole populations studied had higher caste ratios (soldiers/workers) in reproductive colonies as predicted, and in no species did caste functions conform to predictions. We also adapted three models from plant defense theory to study betweenspecies patterns of caste allocation. Among 12 litter Pheidole the amount of sterile biomass devoted to soldiers varied from 18 to 62%. Queen size, growth rate, and soldier investment positively covaried. Only one model, the cost of replacement hypothesis (McKey 1979), correctly predicted that species with costly female alates invest more in defense. The two hypotheses linking apparency to defense may also be valid if fast, growing colonies are more likely to attract the attention of predators. K e y w o r d s C a s t e •

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“…However, as in many other areas of research on optimality, studies of caste distributions are often lacking in detail. Few studies have demonstrated how worker polymorphism is actually beneficial to the colony (Hasegawa 1993) or that colonies rear more workers of a particular size when needed (Passera et al 1996). Particularly, mechanistic explanations of why a certain caste is more efficient at performing a particular task are lacking.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Geometry explains the benefits of division of labour in a leafcutter ant

Helanterä

Ratnieks

2008

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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Many ant species have morphologically distinct worker sub-castes. This presumably increases colony efficiency and is thought to be optimized by natural selection. Optimality arguments are, however, often lacking in detail. In ants, the benefits of having workers in a range of sizes have rarely been explained mechanistically. In Atta leafcutter ants, large workers specialize in defence and also cut fruit. Fruit is soft and can be cut by smaller workers. Why, therefore, are large workers involved? According to the geometry hypothesis, cutting large pieces from three-dimensional objects like fruit is enhanced by longer mandibles. By contrast, long mandibles are not needed to cut leaves that are effectively two-dimensional. Our results from Atta laevigata support three predictions from the geometry hypothesis. First, larger workers cut larger fruit pieces. Second, the effect of large size is greater in cutting fruit than leaves. Third, the size of fruit pieces cut increases approximately in proportion to the cube of mandible length. Our results are a novel mechanistic example of how size variation among worker ants enhances division of labour.

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Nest defense and early production of the major workers in the dimorphic ant Colobopsis nipponicus (Wheeler) (Hymenoptera : Formicidae)

Cited by 41 publications

References 28 publications

Decreasing worker size diversity does not affect colony performance during laboratory challenges in the ant Temnothorax nylanderi

Decreasing worker size diversity does not affect colony performance during laboratory challenges in the ant Temnothorax nylanderi

Caste allocation in litter Pheidole: lessons from plant defense theory

Geometry explains the benefits of division of labour in a leafcutter ant

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