Social interactions promote adaptive resource defense in ants

Kleineidam, Christoph; Heeb, Eva Linda; Neupert, Stefanie

Social interactions promote adaptive resource defense in ants

Dateien

Kleineidam_1-c7628ed05cbf421f3.pdfGröße: 4.04 MBDownloads: 368

Datum

2017

Open Access-Veröffentlichung

Open Access Gold

Sammlungen

Biologie

Publikationstyp

Zeitschriftenartikel

Publikationsstatus

Published

Erschienen in

PLoS ONE. 2017, 12(9), e0183872. eISSN 1932-6203. Available under: doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0183872

Zusammenfassung

Social insects vigorously defend their nests against con- and heterospecific competitors. Collective defense is also seen at highly profitable food sources. Aggressive responses are elicited or promoted by several means of communication, e.g. alarm pheromones and other chemical markings. In this study, we demonstrate that the social environment and interactions among colony members (nestmates) modulates the propensity to engage in aggressive behavior and therefore plays an important role in allocating workers to a defense task. We kept Formica rufa workers in groups or isolated for different time spans and then tested their aggressiveness in one-on-one encounters with other ants. In groups of more than 20 workers that are freely interacting, individuals are aggressive in one-on-one encounters with non-nestmates, whereas aggressiveness of isolated workers decreases with increasing isolation time. We conclude that ants foraging collectively and interacting frequently, e.g. along foraging trails and at profitable food sources, remain in a social context and thereby maintain high aggressiveness against potential competitors. Our results suggest that the nestmate recognition system can be utilized at remote sites for an adaptive and flexible tuning of the response against competitors.

Fachgebiet (DDC)

570 Biowissenschaften, Biologie

Zitieren

ISO 690

KLEINEIDAM, Christoph, Eva Linda HEEB, Stefanie NEUPERT, 2017. Social interactions promote adaptive resource defense in ants. In: PLoS ONE. 2017, 12(9), e0183872. eISSN 1932-6203. Available under: doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0183872

BibTex

@article{Kleineidam2017Socia-40302,
  year={2017},
  doi={10.1371/journal.pone.0183872},
  title={Social interactions promote adaptive resource defense in ants},
  number={9},
  volume={12},
  journal={PLoS ONE},
  author={Kleineidam, Christoph and Heeb, Eva Linda and Neupert, Stefanie},
  note={Article Number: e0183872}
}

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Universitätsbibliographie

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