Vertical organization of the division of labor within nests of the Florida harvester ant, Pogonomyrmex badius

Tschinkel, Wälter R.; Hanley, Nicholas

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0188630

Cited by 14 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…Even though less than half of internodes contained carton galleries, we found that the majority of workers and most of the brood resided in internodes with carton, suggesting they serve as brood storage. The shape of vertical Azteca worker distributions resembled the distribution patterns of several ground-nesting ant species 21,62 , which may reflect comparable resource proximity or available nest volume.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 67%

Ant-plant sociometry in the Azteca-Cecropia mutualism

Marting

Kallman

Wcislo

et al. 2018

Sci Rep

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A holistic understanding of superorganism biology requires study of colony sociometry, or the quantitative relationships among growth, nest architecture, morphology, and behavior. For ant colonies that obligately nest within plant hosts, their sociometry is likely intertwined with the plant, which has implications for the evolution, strength, and stability of the mutualism. In the Azteca-Cecropia mutualism, plants provide ants with food rewards and hollow stems for nesting in return for protection from herbivores. Several interesting questions arise when considering ant-plant sociometry: are colony growth and plant growth synchronized? How do colonies distribute themselves within the stem of their host plant? How do plant traits influence worker morphology? How is collective personality related to tree structure, nest organization, and worker morphology? To address these questions, we investigated patterns within and relationships among five major sociometric categories of colonies in the field – plant traits, colony size, nest organization, worker morphology, and collective personality. We found that colony sociometry was intimately intertwined with host plant traits. Colony and plant growth rates were synchronized, suggesting that positive feedback between plant and colony growth stabilizes the mutualism. The colony’s distribution inside the host tree tended to follow leaf growth, with most workers, brood, and the queen in the top half of the tree. Worker morphology correlated with plant size instead of colony size or age, which suggests that plant traits influence worker development. Colony personality was independent of colony distribution and tree structure but may correlate with worker size such that colonies with smaller, less variable workers had more aggressive personalities. This study provides insights into how ant-plant structural relationships may contribute to plant protection and the strength of mutualisms.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 67%

Ant-plant sociometry in the Azteca-Cecropia mutualism

Marting

Kallman

Wcislo

et al. 2018

Sci Rep

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“…Based on data, we can speculate that there are typical “queen galls” that are occupied by the queen and her incipient colony from the beginning, then by brood and young workers as they are produced. Later, most of the worker population migrates to other galls, thereby deeply modifying their architecture as they grow in age and number, as happens in some ground-dwelling ants [66,67].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gall-Colonizing Ants and Their Role as Plant Defenders: From ’Bad Job’ to ’Useful Service’

Giannetti

Castracani

Spotti

et al. 2019

Insects

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Galls are neoformed structures on host plant tissues caused by the attack of insects or other organisms. They support different communities of specialized parasitic insects (the gall inducers), and can also provide refuge to other insects, such as moths, beetles and ants, referred to as secondary occupants. This study focuses on galls induced by the oak gall wasp Andricus quercustozae and secondarily colonized by ants in a mixed oak forest. A field survey and two experiments were carried out to a) study ant (species-specific) preferences for different features of the galls, b) describe differences in gall architecture due to ant activity, c) analyse the effects of the presence of gall-dwelling ants on plant health. The results show that there are differences between ant species in gall colonization and in the alteration of gall opening and inner structure. We verified that gall-dwelling ants protect their host plants efficiently, offering them an indirect defence mechanism against enemies (predators and pathogens). The data suggest a new paradigm in ant–plant relationships mediated by the presence of galls on the plants whose ecological and evolutionary implications are discussed.

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“…Workers have task-specific CHC profiles because task performance, e.g., nest building, brood tending, or foraging outside the nest influence the CHC profiles (Wagner et al, 1998 ; Kaib et al, 2000 ). Furthermore, the mixing of CHCs between individuals of a colony is not complete because workers within a task-group encounter and interact with each other more frequently than between task-groups (Sendova-Franks and Franks, 1995 ; Mersch et al, 2013 ; Pamminger et al, 2014 ; Tschinkel and Hanley, 2017 ). Based on these systematic differences in CHC profiles, workers are able to discriminate between nestmates performing different tasks (Bonavita-Cougourdan et al, 1993 ; Greene and Gordon, 2003 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning Distinct Chemical Labels of Nestmates in Ants

Neupert

Hornung

Millar

et al. 2018

Front. Behav. Neurosci.

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Colony coherence is essential for eusocial insects because it supports the inclusive fitness of colony members. Ants quickly and reliably recognize who belongs to the colony (nestmates) and who is an outsider (non-nestmates) based on chemical recognition cues (cuticular hydrocarbons: CHCs) which as a whole constitute a chemical label. The process of nestmate recognition often is described as matching a neural template with the label. In this study, we tested the prevailing view that ants use commonalities in the colony odor that are present in the CHC profile of all individuals of a colony or whether different CHC profiles are learned independently. We created and manipulated sub-colonies by adding one or two different hydrocarbons that were not present in the original colony odor of our Camponotus floridanus colony and later tested workers of the sub-colonies in one-on-one encounters for aggressive responses. We found that workers adjust their nestmate recognition by learning novel, manipulated CHC profiles, but still accept workers with the previous CHC profile. Workers from a sub-colony with two additional components showed aggression against workers with only one of the two components added to their CHC profile. Thus, additional components as well as the lack of a component can alter a label as “non-nestmate.” Our results suggest that ants have multiple-templates to recognize nestmates carrying distinct labels. This finding is in contrast to what previously has been proposed, i.e., a widening of the acceptance range of one template. We conclude that nestmate recognition in ants is a partitioned (multiple-template) process of the olfactory system that allows discrimination and categorization of nestmates by differences in their CHC profiles. Our findings have strong implications for our understanding of the underlying mechanisms of colony coherence and task allocation because they illustrate the importance of individual experience and task associated differences in the CHC profiles that can be instructive for the organization of insect societies.

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Vertical organization of the division of labor within nests of the Florida harvester ant, Pogonomyrmex badius

Cited by 14 publications

References 41 publications

Ant-plant sociometry in the Azteca-Cecropia mutualism

Ant-plant sociometry in the Azteca-Cecropia mutualism

Gall-Colonizing Ants and Their Role as Plant Defenders: From ’Bad Job’ to ’Useful Service’

Learning Distinct Chemical Labels of Nestmates in Ants

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