Search results for "Temnothorax longispinosus"
showing 10 items of 11 documents
Fitness costs of worker specialization for ant societies
2016
Division of labour is of fundamental importance for the success of societies, yet little is known about how individual specialization affects the fitness of the group as a whole. While specialized workers may be more efficient in the tasks they perform than generalists, they may also lack the flexibility to respond to rapid shifts in task needs. Such rigidity could impose fitness costs when societies face dynamic and unpredictable events, such as an attack by socially parasitic slavemakers. Here, we experimentally assess the colony-level fitness consequences of behavioural specialization in Temnothorax longispinosus ants that are attacked by the slavemaker ant T. americanus . We manipulate…
Diverse societies are more productive: a lesson from ants
2012
The fitness consequences of animal personalities (also known as behavioural syndromes) have recently been studied in several solitary species. However, the adaptive significance of collective personalities in social insects and especially of behavioural variation among group members remains largely unexplored. Although intracolonial behavioural variation is an important component of division of labour, and as such a key feature for the success of societies, empirical links between behavioural variation and fitness are scarce. We investigated aggression, exploration and brood care behaviour in Temnothorax longispinosus ant colonies. We focused on two distinct aspects: intercolonial variabil…
Forewarned is forearmed: aggression and information use determine fitness costs of slave raids
2014
Many animals use reliable indicators of upcoming events such as antagonistic interactions to prepare themselves. In group-living animals, not only the cue perceiving individuals are involved in mobilization, but the entire group can use this information. In this study, we analyze whether social insects, which perceive reliable information on an upcoming social parasite attack, can use this knowledge to better defend their colony. We focus on the interaction between the ant Temnothorax longispinosus and the slave-making ant Protomognathus americanus, which conducts destructive raids on host colonies to steal their brood. As a behavioral defense, host colonies show aggression, which has a con…
Raiders from the sky: slavemaker founding queens select for aggressive host colonies.
2012
Reciprocal selection pressures in host–parasite systems drive coevolutionary arms races that lead to advanced adaptations in both opponents. In the interactions between social parasites and their hosts, aggression is one of the major behavioural traits under selection. In a field manipulation, we aimed to disentangle the impact of slavemaking ants and nest density on aggression of Temnothorax longispinosus ants. An early slavemaker mating flight provided us with the unique opportunity to study the influence of host aggression and demography on founding decisions and success. We discovered that parasite queens avoided colony foundation in parasitized areas and were able to capture more broo…
Data from: Gene expression is more strongly associated with behavioural specialisation than with age or fertility in ant workers
2018
The ecological success of social insects is based on division of labour, not only between queens and workers, but also among workers. Whether a worker tends the brood or forages is influenced by age, fertility and nutritional status, with brood carers being younger, more fecund and more corpulent. Here, we experimentally disentangle behavioural specialisation from age and fertility in Temnothorax longispinosus ant workers and analyse how these parameters are linked to whole-body gene expression. A total of 3644 genes were associated with behavioural specialisation which is ten times more than associated with age and 50 times more than associated with fertility. Brood carers were characteriz…
Data from: Tandem-running and scouting behavior are characterized by up-regulation of learning and memory formation genes within the ant brain
2019
Tandem-running is a recruitment behavior in ants that has been described as a form of teaching, where spatial information possessed by a leader is conveyed to following nestmates. Within Temnothorax ants, tandem-running is used within a variety of contexts, from foraging and nest relocation to – in the case of slavemaking species – slave raiding. Here, we elucidate the transcriptomic basis of scouting, tandem-leading, and tandem-following behavior across two species with divergent lifestyles: the slavemaking Temnothorax americanus and its primary, non-parasitic host T. longispinosus. Analysis of gene expression data from brains revealed that only a small number of unique differentially-expr…
Data from: Gene expression patterns associated with caste and reproductive status in ants: worker-specific genes are more derived than queen-specific…
2013
Variation in gene expression leads to phenotypic diversity and plays a central role in caste differentiation of eusocial insect species. In social Hymenoptera, females with the same genetic background can develop into queens or workers, which are characterized by divergent morphologies, behaviors and lifespan. Moreover, many social insects exhibit behaviorally distinct worker castes, such as brood-tenders and foragers. Researchers have just started to explore which genes are differentially expressed to achieve this remarkable phenotypic plasticity. Although the queen is normally the only reproductive individual in the nest, following her removal, young brood-tending workers often develop ov…
Data from: Vitellogenin-like A–associated shifts in social cue responsiveness regulate behavioral task specialization in an ant
2018
Division of labor and task specialization explain the success of human and insect societies. Social insect colonies are characterized by division of labor with workers specializing on brood care early and foraging later in life. Theory posits that this task switching requires shifts in responsiveness to task-related cues, yet experimental evidence is weak. Here we show that a Vitellogenin (Vg) ortholog identified in a RNAseq study on the ant Temnothorax longispinosus is involved in this process: Using phylogenetic analyses of Vg and Vg-like genes, we firstly show that this candidate gene does not cluster with the intensively studied honey bee Vg, but falls into a separate Vg-like A cluster.…
Data from: Fitness costs of worker specialisation for ant societies
2015
Division of labour is of fundamental importance for the success of societies, yet little is known about how individual specialization affects the fitness of the group as a whole. While specialized workers may be more efficient in the tasks they perform than generalists, they may also lack the flexibility to respond to rapid shifts in task needs. Such rigidity could impose fitness costs when societies face dynamic and unpredictable events, such as an attack by socially parasitic slavemakers. Here, we experimentally assess the colony-level fitness consequences of behavioural specialization in Temnothorax longispinosus ants that are attacked by the slavemaker ant T. americanus. We manipulated …
Data from: Collective defence portfolios of ant hosts shift with social parasite pressure
2014
Host defences become increasingly costly as parasites breach successive lines of defence. Because selection favours hosts that successfully resist parasitism at the lowest possible cost, escalating coevolutionary arms races are likely to drive host defence portfolios towards ever more expensive strategies. We investigated the interplay between host defence portfolios and social parasite pressure by comparing 17 populations of two Temnothorax ant species. When successful, collective aggression not only prevents parasitation but also spares host colonies the cost of searching for and moving to a new nest site. However, once parasites breach the host's nest defence, host colonies should resort…