Untitled

Wagner, Diane; Tissot, Madeleine; Cuevas, William; Gordon, Deborah M.

doi:10.1023/a:1005529224856

Cited by 137 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 26 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…CHCs are used by ants to identify and discern nest-mates and non-nest-mates [32 -34]. CHCs-coated glass beads have been used successfully to mimic both nest-mate [35 -38] and non-nest-mate ants [33,36,38,39]. To prepare the beads, we collected 10 workers from the test colony, chilled them for 2 min at 2208C and then placed them in a glass vial with 500 ml pentane for 10 min to dissolve CHCs.…”

Section: Part 2: Simulating Crowding With Glass Beadsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Negative feedback in ants: crowding results in less trail pheromone deposition

Czaczkes

Grüter

Ratnieks

2013

J. R. Soc. Interface.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Crowding in human transport networks reduces efficiency. Efficiency can be increased by appropriate control mechanisms, which are often imposed externally. Ant colonies also have distribution networks to feeding sites outside the nest and can experience crowding. However, ants do not have external controllers or leaders. Here, we report a self-organized negative feedback mechanism, based on local information, which downregulates the production of recruitment signals in crowded parts of a network by Lasius niger ants. We controlled crowding by manipulating trail width and the number of ants on a trail, and observed a 5.6-fold reduction in the number of ants depositing trail pheromone from least to most crowded conditions. We also simulated crowding by placing glass beads covered in nest-mate cuticular hydrocarbons on the trail. After 10 bead encounters over 20 cm, forager ants were 45 per cent less likely to deposit pheromone. The mechanism of negative feedback reported here is unusual in that it acts by downregulating the production of a positive feedback signal, rather than by direct inhibition or the production of an inhibitory signal.

show abstract

Section: Part 2: Simulating Crowding With Glass Beadsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Negative feedback in ants: crowding results in less trail pheromone deposition

Czaczkes

Grüter

Ratnieks

2013

J. R. Soc. Interface.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…These processes are very basal and widespread, as indicated by the close correlation of variations in the cuticular hydrocarbon profile and reproductive activity in many ant species (35,37,41,42). Besides their function in protecting eggs and cuticle from desiccation (64 -66) and contributing to nestmate recognition (67)(68)(69), hydrocarbon profiles additionally represent a queen signal that regulates reproduction in C. floridanus and possibly in many other social insects as well. Workers can perceive the queen signal either directly from the queen or indirectly by means of her eggs.…”

Section: Regulation Of Reproductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Surface hydrocarbons of queen eggs regulate worker reproduction in a social insect

Endler

Liebig

Schmitt

et al. 2004

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

258

219

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A hitherto largely unresolved problem in behavioral biology is how workers are prevented from reproducing in large insect societies with high relatedness. Signals of the queen are assumed to inform the nestmates about her presence in the colony, which leads to indirect fitness benefits for workers. In the ant Camponotus floridanus, we found such a signal located on queen-laid eggs. In groups of workers that were regularly provided with queen-laid eggs, larvae, and cocoons, with larvae and cocoons alone, or with no brood, only in the groups with queen-laid eggs did workers not lay eggs. Thus, the eggs seem to inform the nestmates about the queen's presence, which induces workers to refrain from reproducing. The signal on queen-laid eggs is presumably the same that enables workers to distinguish between queen-and worker-laid eggs. Despite their viability, the latter are destroyed by workers when given a choice between both types. Queen-and worker-laid eggs differ in their surface hydrocarbons in a way similar to the way fertile queens differ from workers in the composition of their cuticular hydrocarbons. When we transferred hydrocarbons from the queen cuticle to worker-laid eggs, the destruction of those eggs was significantly mitigated. We conclude that queen-derived hydrocarbon labels inform workers about the presence of a fertile queen and thereby regulate worker reproduction.

show abstract

“…In social insects, CHCs are known to be colony-specific (e.g., refs. 7 and 8) and in some ants were demonstrated to be the basis of nestmate recognition (9)(10)(11). In the latter studies, the purified HC fraction of cuticular extracts from workers was applied on live ants or artificial lures, and the response of nestmates or nonnestmates was modified according to the origin of the extracts to which they were exposed.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Cuticular hydrocarbons mediate discrimination of reproductives and nonreproductives in the ant Myrmecia gulosa

Dietemann

Peeters

Liebig

et al. 2003

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

181

116

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In many species of social insects, the cuticular hydrocarbons of adults vary with both colony identity and individual physiology (oogenesis). Such variations have been shown in some ants and social wasps to function in nestmate recognition, but as yet there is no demonstration of their use by workers to recognize egg layers. We report that in the ant Myrmecia gulosa, workers can discriminate queens and fertile workers from infertile individuals based on distinctive blends of long-chained hydrocarbons present both on the cuticle and in the postpharyngeal gland. The purified hydrocarbon fraction of cuticular extracts from queens elicited high interest in workers, unlike the nonhydrocarbon fraction. However, both fractions were necessary to trigger a response of maximal intensity. In contrast, extracts of mandibular and Dufour glands from queens or infertile workers were not treated differentially by workers. We suggest that cuticular hydrocarbons function as pheromones allowing for recognition of the queen as well as egg-laying workers.

show abstract

Untitled

Cited by 137 publications

References 26 publications

Negative feedback in ants: crowding results in less trail pheromone deposition

Negative feedback in ants: crowding results in less trail pheromone deposition

Surface hydrocarbons of queen eggs regulate worker reproduction in a social insect

Cuticular hydrocarbons mediate discrimination of reproductives and nonreproductives in the ant Myrmecia gulosa

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About