Harvester ants use interactions to regulate forager activation and availability.

ABSTRACT: Social groups balance flexibility and robustness in their collective response to environmental changes using feedback between behavioural processes that operate at different timescales. Here we examine how behavioural processes operating at two timescales regulate the foraging activity of colonies of the harvester ant, Pogonomyrmex barbatus, allowing them to balance their response to food availability and predation. Previous work showed that the rate at which foragers return to the nest with food influences the rate at which foragers leave the nest. To investigate how interactions inside the nest link the rates of returning and outgoing foragers, we observed outgoing foragers inside the nest in field colonies using a novel observation method. We found that the interaction rate exper

SUBMITTER: Pinter-Wollman N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3767282 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature