Worker division of labor and endocrine physiology are associated in the harvester ant,<i>Pogonomyrmex californicus</i>

Doležal, Adam; Brent, Colin S.; Hölldobler, Bert; Amdam, Gro V.

doi:10.1242/jeb.060822

Cited by 71 publications

(53 citation statements)

References 54 publications

(63 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Although our results confirmed that the link between age and task is flexible in ants (e.g. Sendova-Franks and Franks, 1993;Blanchard et al, 2000;Dolezal et al, 2012;Bernadou et al, 2015), not unexpectedly there was a slight increase in mortality rate with chronological age, with foragers that reverted to inner-nest workers dying somewhat sooner than 'true' inner-nest workers. This difference could be due to the fact that fat reserves were lower in foragers that reverted to inner-nest workers than in inner-nest workers that remained inner-nest workers.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 68%

Resistance to nutritional stress in ants: when being fat is advantageous

Dussutour

Poissonnier

Buhl

et al. 2016

Journal of Experimental Biology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In ants, nutrient acquisition for the whole colony relies on a minority of workers, the foragers, which are often old and lean. Some studies have shown that the link between age, physiology and foraging activity is more flexible than once thought, especially in response to colony or environmental perturbations. This great plasticity offers the intriguing possibility to disentangle the effect of age, behaviour and physiology on the ants' abilities to cope with nutritional stresses. In this paper, we first looked at the capacity of groups of foragers and inner-nest workers to resist starvation and macronutrient imbalance. Second, we investigated whether behavioural task reversion modified the tolerance to nutritional stresses and by extension, changed mortality rate. We found that inner-nest workers live longer than foragers under nutritional stresses but not under optimal conditions. The reversion from foraging to inner-nest activities is followed by an increase in fat content and longevity. Finally, we demonstrated that changes in fat content associated with behavioural transition are highly flexible and strongly correlated to tolerance of nutritional stress. Our results have considerable implications for our understanding of the population dynamics of social insects under adverse nutritional conditions.

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 68%

Resistance to nutritional stress in ants: when being fat is advantageous

Dussutour

Poissonnier

Buhl

et al. 2016

Journal of Experimental Biology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…A long history of research has focused on a connection between increased JH levels and foraging in social insects (Dolezal et al, 2012;Hartfelder, 2000), and we previously confirmed this pattern in H. saltator (Penick et al, 2011). Alternatively, work on biogenic amines in honey bees has found that octopamine may regulate foraging in tandem with JH, and the response to octopamine treatment is more rapid than the response to JH treatment (Schulz et al, 2002).…”

Section: Worker Division Of Laborsupporting

confidence: 63%

Neurohormonal changes associated with ritualized combat and the formation of a reproductive hierarchy in the antHarpegnathos saltator

Penick

Brent

Dolezal

et al. 2014

Journal of Experimental Biology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Dominance rank in animal societies is correlated with changes in both reproductive physiology and behavior. In some social insects, dominance status is used to determine a reproductive division of labor, where a few colony members reproduce while most remain functionally sterile. Changes in reproduction and behavior in this context must be coordinated through crosstalk between the brain and the reproductive system. We investigated a role for biogenic amines in forming this connection in the ant Harpegnathos saltator. In this species, workers engage in an elaborate dominance tournament to establish a group of reproductive workers termed gamergates. We analyzed biogenic amine content in the brains of gamergates, insideworkers and foragers under stable colony conditions and found that gamergates had the highest levels of dopamine. Dopamine levels were also positively correlated with increased ovarian activity among gamergates. Next, we experimentally induced workers to compete in a reproductive tournament to determine how dopamine may be involved in the establishment of a new hierarchy. Dopamine levels rose in aggressive workers at the start of a tournament, while workers that were policed by their nestmates (a behavior that inhibits ovarian activity) showed a rapid decline in dopamine. In addition to dopamine, levels of serotonin and tyramine differed among castes, and these changes could contribute to differences in caste-specific behavioral patterns observed among non-reproductive workers. Overall, these results provide support that biogenic amines link changes in behavior and dominance with reproductive activity in H. saltator as well as drive differences in worker task performance.

show abstract

“…Furthermore, JH has many other functions in social insects, including behavioral modulation, longevity, fecundity and immunity (Flatt et al, 2005; Jindra et al, 2013; Dolezal et al, 2012; Wang et al, 2012); the relevance of trophallaxis-mediated JH exchange between adults remains to be explored. Considering that most, if not all, individuals in a colony must share food through trophallaxis, it will also be of interest to understand if and how individual-, or caste-specific TF-based information signals emerge.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Oral transfer of chemical cues, growth proteins and hormones in social insects

LeBoeuf

Waridel

Brent

et al. 2016

eLife

114

123

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Social insects frequently engage in oral fluid exchange – trophallaxis – between adults, and between adults and larvae. Although trophallaxis is widely considered a food-sharing mechanism, we hypothesized that endogenous components of this fluid might underlie a novel means of chemical communication between colony members. Through protein and small-molecule mass spectrometry and RNA sequencing, we found that trophallactic fluid in the ant Camponotus floridanus contains a set of specific digestion- and non-digestion related proteins, as well as hydrocarbons, microRNAs, and a key developmental regulator, juvenile hormone. When C. floridanus workers’ food was supplemented with this hormone, the larvae they reared via trophallaxis were twice as likely to complete metamorphosis and became larger workers. Comparison of trophallactic fluid proteins across social insect species revealed that many are regulators of growth, development and behavioral maturation. These results suggest that trophallaxis plays previously unsuspected roles in communication and enables communal control of colony phenotypes.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.20375.001

show abstract

Worker division of labor and endocrine physiology are associated in the harvester ant,Pogonomyrmex californicus

Cited by 71 publications

References 54 publications

Resistance to nutritional stress in ants: when being fat is advantageous

Resistance to nutritional stress in ants: when being fat is advantageous

Neurohormonal changes associated with ritualized combat and the formation of a reproductive hierarchy in the antHarpegnathos saltator

Oral transfer of chemical cues, growth proteins and hormones in social insects

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About