Sisters or strangers: How does relatedness affect foraging in carpenter ants?
| Autor: | Hwang-Finkelman, Lauren, Lopez, Marissa, Murguia, Alondra, Treminio, Nathalie |
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| Rok vydání: | 2021 |
| Předmět: | |
| DOI: | 10.21973/n36q25 |
| Popis: | Optimal foraging theory (OFT) states that animals will forage in a way that maximizes energy intake while minimizing energy expenditure. Eusocial insects are examples of species that exhibit OFT. One type of eusocial insect is the carpenter ant (Camponotus). Carpenter ants use pheromone trails as a form of communication. In using chemical cues to communicate with one another, carpenter ants fulfill OFT by maximizing energy rewards and minimizing energy spent searching for resources. We conducted choice trials with different sugar water concentrations and observed how relatedness between ants affected foraging behavior. We tested if carpenter ants would act according to OFT and forage from the resource with the highest energy reward or if the presence of non-related ants would influence their behavior. We collected ants at Mclaughlin Natural Reserve in California and placed them in an arena with four different sugar water concentrations either with ants of the same colony (sisters; intracolonial) or ants of a different colony (strangers; intercolonial). Our findings supported our hypothesis that the presence of ants from different colonies affects foraging preferences. Intracolonial ants took less time to visit concentrations and made more visits to higher concentrations in comparison to ants in intercolonial trials. We theorize that this may be due to the chemical cues used to distinguish between ants of the same colony and to communicate the presence of sugar water. We also observed that ants had a strong preference for the highest concentration of sugar water, supporting our second hypothesis that ants prefer higher quality resources. We speculate that this is due to optimal foraging theory, where animals seek to maximize their energy intake while minimizing their energy expenditure. The findings of this study highlight the complexities of animal foraging behavior and communication between members of the same species. CEC Research Volume 5, Issue 1 |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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