Collective Flexibility During Mass Recruitment in the Ant <i>Myrmica Sabuleti</i> (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

Biseau, J. C. de; Deneubourg, Jean‐Louis; Pasteels, Jacques

doi:10.1155/1991/38402

Cited by 41 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…On the first day of each experimental week, after a weekend without food, ants recruited more concentrated solution than dilute solution ( Fig.·2C and Fig.·3) as reported in various earlier studies [Solenopsis saevissima (Wilson, 1962;Cassil and Tschinkel, 1999), Solenopsis geminata (Hangartner, 1969) Lasius niger (Beckers et al, 1990;Beckers et al, 1993), Monomorium and Tapinoma (Szlep and Jacobi, 1967), Tetramorium impurum (Verhaeghe, 1982), Myrmica sabuletti (de Biseau et al, 1991) (for a review, see Detrain et al, 1999)]. Consequently they collected more of the concentrated than of the dilute sugar solution (Fig.·2A).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 77%

“…At a collective level, workers recruit nestmates to a food source at different rates depending upon food type (Cassill and Tschinkel, 1999;Portha et al, 2002), food concentration [Solenopsis saevissima (Wilson, 1962;Cassil and Tschinkel, 1999); Solenopsis geminata (Hangartner, 1969); Lasius niger (Beckers et al, 1993); Monomorium and Tapinoma (Szlep and Jacobi, 1967); Tetramorium impurum (Verhaeghe, 1982); Myrmica sabuletti (de Biseau et al, 1991) (for a review, see Detrain et al, 1999)] and hunger level (Mailleux et al, 2006). In general, workers recruit more workers when they are starved, more strongly to sucrose than to protein, and more strongly to concentrated than to dilute solutions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Carbohydrate regulation in relation to colony growth in ants

Dussutour

Simpson

2008

Journal of Experimental Biology

106

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SUMMARYAnts and all social insects are faced with a nutritional challenge: the food entering the colony is brought by only a small number of its workers but is shared among all members of the colony. In this study, we investigated how ants maintain carbohydrates supply at both a collective and an individual level in response to changes in the concentration of available sucrose solution, colony demography and larval growth. We manipulated the concentration of sugar solutions available to ant colonies (dilute, medium and concentrated solutions) over extended periods and measured the capacity of colonies to maintain sugar supply through compensatory feeding. First, we demonstrated that ants regulated carbohydrate intake at a collective and individual level. Initially, ants consumed most and recruited fastest in response to more concentrated than to dilute sugar solutions, but over time this pattern reversed, such that the number of ants that fed and the volume ingested by each ant was a negative function of sugar concentration in the diet. Second, we found that ants became better at regulating their carbohydrate intake with the production of larvae in the nest. When the number of larvae was experimentally doubled, the ants regulated their consumption of carbohydrates more accurately than when the number of adult workers was doubled, suggesting that larvae play an important role in providing nutritional feedback to workers. Finally, we showed that ants defended a carbohydrate 'intake target' by allowing them to select among sugar solutions of different concentration.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 77%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Carbohydrate regulation in relation to colony growth in ants

Dussutour

Simpson

2008

Journal of Experimental Biology

106

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“…Most studies that have investigated the Xexibility of foraging behavior in social insects have dealt with the changes occurring in the availability of food sources, e.g., the removal of a food source by competitors, or the discovery by scout workers of a new and more proWtable food source (Pasteels et al 1987;de Biseau et al 1991;Seeley et al 1991;Beckers et al 1993; review in Detrain et al 1999). Foraging behavior, however, can be potentially aVected by other types of environmental modiWcations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Individual and collective problem-solving in a foraging context in the leaf-cutting ant Atta colombica

et al. 2008

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In this paper we investigate the Xexibility of foraging behavior in the leaf-cutting ant Atta colombica, both at the individual and collective levels, following a change in the physical properties of their environment. We studied in laboratory conditions the changes occurring in foraging behavior when a height constraint was placed 1 cm above part of the trail linking the nest to the foraging area. We found that the size and shape of the fragments of foraging material brought back to the nest were signiWcantly modiWed when the constraint was placed on the trail: independent of their size, forager ants cut smaller and rounder fragments in the presence of a height constraint than in its absence. This size adjustment does not require any direct sensory feedback because it occurred when the ants cut fragments in the foraging area; no further cutting was done when they encountered the constraint. This points to the existence of a template that ants store and use as a reference to adjust their reach while cutting. Remarkably, despite the decrease in the foraging material brought to the nest per capita the colony was still able to improve its foraging performance by doubling the number of transporters. This study illustrates the Xexibility of foraging behavior exhibited by an ant colony. It provides a rare example of insects Wnding an intelligent solution to a problem occurring in a foraging context, at both the individual and collective levels.

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“…This result was also replicated with L. niger (Beckers et al, 1992). Ants may manage to avoid trapping via different recruitment mechanisms (Shaffer et al, 2013), differential pheromone response strengths (de Biseau et al, 1991), spontaneous errors in trail following (Dussutour et al, 2009), or by employing negative feedback mechanisms (Czaczkes, 2014;Grüter et al, 2012) or repellent pheromones (Robinson et al, 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 67%

Private information alone can trigger trapping of ant colonies in local feeding optima

Czaczkes

Salmane

Klampfleuthner

et al. 2016

Journal of Experimental Biology

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Ant colonies are famous for using trail pheromones to make collective decisions. Trail pheromone systems are characterised by positive feedback, which results in rapid collective decision making. However, in an iconic experiment, ants were shown to become 'trapped' in exploiting a poor food source, if it was discovered earlier. This has conventionally been explained by the established pheromone trail becoming too strong for new trails to compete. However, many social insects have a well-developed memory, and private information often overrules conflicting social information. Thus, route memory could also explain this collective 'trapping' effect. Here, we disentangled the effects of social and private information in two 'trapping' experiments: one in which ants were presented with a good and a poor food source, and one in which ants were presented with a long and a short path to the same food source. We found that private information is sufficient to trigger trapping in selecting the poorer of two food sources, and may be sufficient to cause it altogether. Memories did not trigger trapping in the shortest path experiment, probably because sufficiently detailed memories did not form. The fact that collective decisions can be triggered by private information alone may require other collective patterns previously attributed solely to social information use to be reconsidered.

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Collective Flexibility During Mass Recruitment in the Ant Myrmica Sabuleti (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

Cited by 41 publications

References 10 publications

Carbohydrate regulation in relation to colony growth in ants

Carbohydrate regulation in relation to colony growth in ants

Individual and collective problem-solving in a foraging context in the leaf-cutting ant Atta colombica

Private information alone can trigger trapping of ant colonies in local feeding optima

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