Vertical organization of the division of labor within nests of the Florida harvester ant, Pogonomyrmex badius
| Autor: | Nicholas Hanley, Walter R. Tschinkel |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2017 |
| Předmět: |
0106 biological sciences
Pigments Life Cycles ved/biology.organism_classification_rank.species lcsh:Medicine Social Sciences 01 natural sciences Larvae Nest Sociology Beetles Foraging lcsh:Science Dyes Pogonomyrmex badius education.field_of_study Multidisciplinary Behavior Animal Animal Behavior Ecology Eukaryota Insects Geography Animal Sociality Physical Sciences Harvester ant Florida Social Systems Division of labour Research Article Arthropoda Death Rates Population Materials Science 010603 evolutionary biology Population Metrics Animals education Materials by Attribute Fluorescent Dyes Behavior Population Biology ved/biology Ants lcsh:R Organisms Biology and Life Sciences Invertebrates Hymenoptera Brood 010602 entomology Brood care lcsh:Q Zoology Developmental Biology |
| Zdroj: | PLoS ONE PLoS ONE, Vol 12, Iss 11, p e0188630 (2017) |
| ISSN: | 1932-6203 |
| Popis: | In the Florida harvester ant, Pogonomyrmex badius, foragers occur only in the top 15 cm of the nest, whereas brood and brood-care workers reside mostly in the deepest regions, yet the food and seeds foragers collect must be transported downward 30 to 80 cm to seed chambers and up to 2 m to brood chambers. Using mark-recapture techniques with fluorescent printer's ink, we identified a class of workers that ranges widely within the vertical structure of the nest, rapidly moving materials dropped by foragers in the upper regions downward, and excavated soil from deeper upward. Within the nest, only 5% of foragers were recovered below 20 cm depth, but about 30% of transfer workers and 82% of unmarked workers were found there. Below 70 cm depth, 90% of workers were unmarked, and were probably involved mostly in brood care. During the summer, the transfer workers comprise about a quarter of the nest population, while foragers make up about 40%. Workers marked as transfer workers later appear as foragers, while those marked as foragers die and disappear from the foraging population, suggesting that transfer workers are younger, and age into foraging. The importance of these findings for laboratory studies of division of labor are discussed. The efficient allocation of labor is a key component of superorganismal fitness. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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