Seasonality, division of labor, and dynamics of colony-level nutrient storage in the ant Pheidole morrisi

Yang, Andrew S.

doi:10.1007/s00040-005-0896-3

Cited by 28 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…Similar correlations are seen in several other social insects (Ament et al, 2008;O'Donnell and Jeanne, 1995;Porter and Jorgensen, 1981;Yang, 2006). In T. albipennis, previous work shows that this relationship cannot be explained as a side effect of differences in age, location within the nest or general activity level (Robinson et al, 2009a;Robinson et al, 2009c).…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 69%

Experience, corpulence and decision making in ant foraging

Robinson

Feinerman

Franks

2012

Journal of Experimental Biology

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SUMMARYSocial groups are structured by the decisions of their members. Social insects typically divide labour: some decide to stay in the nest while others forage for the colony. Two sources of information individuals may use when deciding whether to forage are their own experience of recent task performance and their own physiology, e.g. fat reserves (corpulence). The former is primarily personal information; the latter may give an indication of the food reserves of the whole colony. These factors are hard to separate because typically leaner individuals are also more experienced foragers. We designed an experiment to determine whether foraging specialisation is physiological or experience based (or both). We invented a system of automatic doors controlled by radio-tag information to manipulate task access and decouple these two sources of information. Our results show that when information from corpulence and recent experience conflict, ants behave only in accordance with their corpulence. However, among ants physiologically inclined to forage (less corpulent ants), recent experience of success positively influenced their propensity to forage again. Hence, foraging is organised via long-term physiological differences among individuals resulting in a relatively stable response threshold distribution, with fine-tuning provided by short-term learning processes. Through these simple rules, colonies can organise their foraging effort both robustly and flexibly.Supplementary material available online at

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 69%

Experience, corpulence and decision making in ant foraging

Robinson

Feinerman

Franks

2012

Journal of Experimental Biology

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“…The expanded task repertoires of older minors may compensate for the apparent inability of colonies to rapidly adjust worker age demography (Calabi and Traniello 1989b; Seid and Traniello 2006; Muscedere et al 2009). In other ant species ( Pogonomyrmex barbatus : Gordon 1989; Gordon and Mehdiabadi 1999; Gordon et al 2005; Pheidole morrisi : Brown and Traniello 1998; Yang 2006; Atta cephalotes : Wilson 1983b), task flexibility may enable adaptive responses to environmental perturbations without the need to alter colony demography (Schmid-Hempel 1992). Mechanisms of adaptive skewing of physical subcaste investment have been described (Passera et al 1996), but colony-level modification of age demography is not understood.…”

Section: Worker Longevity and Colony Fitnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Worker senescence and the sociobiology of aging in ants

Giraldo

Traniello

2014

Behav Ecol Sociobiol

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Senescence, the decline in physiological and behavioral function with increasing age, has been the focus of significant theoretical and empirical research in a broad array of animal taxa. Preeminent among invertebrate social models of aging are ants, a diverse and ecologically dominant clade of eusocial insects characterized by reproductive and sterile phenotypes. In this review, we critically examine selection for worker lifespan in ants and discuss the relationship between functional senescence, longevity, task performance, and colony fitness. We did not find strong or consistent support for the hypothesis that demographic senescence in ants is programmed, or its corollary prediction that workers that do not experience extrinsic mortality die at an age approximating their lifespan in nature. We present seven hypotheses concerning how selection could favor extended worker lifespan through its positive relationship to colony size and predict that large colony size, under some conditions, should confer multiple and significant fitness advantages. Fitness benefits derived from long worker lifespan could be mediated by increased resource acquisition, efficient division of labor, accuracy of collective decision-making, enhanced allomaternal care and colony defense, lower infection risk, and decreased energetic costs of workforce maintenance. We suggest future avenues of research to examine the evolution of worker lifespan and its relationship to colony fitness, and conclude that an innovative fusion of sociobiology, senescence theory, and mechanistic studies of aging can improve our understanding of the adaptive nature of worker lifespan in ants.

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“…Replete majors were also found in other polymorphic ants ( Camponotus spp. (Wilson 1974; Espadaler et al 1990; Hasegawa 1993), Myrmecocystus mexicanus (Conway 1990), P. hortensis (Calabi et al 1983), P. morrisi (Yang 2006) and Solenopsis invicta (Mirenda and Vinson 1981)). In polymorphic ants, a distinction can thus be made between two types of inactive majors: (1) idle unspecialized majors that become active due to colony need for an additional workforce as in many Pheidole species (Wilson 1984; Brown and Traniello 1998) and (2) replete majors that stay inactive even after large demographic perturbations (as for P. pallidula majors), acting as living reservoirs that deaden food shortages.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social Task Regulation in the Dimorphic Ant,Pheidole pallidula: the Influence of Caste Ratio

Sempo

Detrain

2010

Journal of Insect Science

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We investigated whether the physical castes of the dimorphic ant Pheidole pallidula (Nylander) (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), are involved in determining within-nest activities and how their social investment in everyday tasks is influenced by large changes in the colony's caste ratio. Although the large-headed majors are morphologically distinct from minors, they are similar in size, exhibit similar behavioral repertoires and carry out nearly the same tasks as minors. Changes, even large ones, in the colony's caste ratio have no significant effect on the repertoire size of either caste. Majors do not compensate for the depletion of minors by expanding their repertoire or increasing their activity level. Instead of being an idle stand-by caste as suggested for other Pheidole specie s, P. pallidula majors are nearly as totipotent as minors. Moreover, their performance rate of social behaviors is remarkably high and constant regardless of the colony caste ratio. Such high investment of the major caste helps the colony to keep social behaviors at a baseline even in colonies undergoing large demographic changes. Alternative schemes of social regulation in polymorphic ant species are discussed. A possible methodological bias accounting for between-species differences in the level of majors' specialization is described.

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Seasonality, division of labor, and dynamics of colony-level nutrient storage in the ant Pheidole morrisi

Cited by 28 publications

References 28 publications

Experience, corpulence and decision making in ant foraging

Experience, corpulence and decision making in ant foraging

Worker senescence and the sociobiology of aging in ants

Social Task Regulation in the Dimorphic Ant,Pheidole pallidula: the Influence of Caste Ratio

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