Hierarchical networks of food exchange in the black garden ant Lasius niger

In most eusocial insects, the division of labour results in relatively few individuals foraging for the entire colony. Thus, the survival of the colony depends on its efficiency in meeting the nutritional needs of all its members. Here, we characterise the network topology of a eusocial insect to understand the role and centrality of each caste in this network during the process of food dissemination. We constructed trophallaxis networks from 34 food-exchange experiments in black garden ants (Lasius niger). We tested the influence of brood and colony size on (i) global indices at the network level (i.e. efficiency, resilience, centralisation and modularity) and (ii) individual values (i.e. …