Polydomy enhances foraging performance in ant colonies.

ABSTRACT: Collective foraging confers benefits in terms of reduced predation risk and access to social information, but it heightens local competition when resources are limited. In social insects, resource limitation has been suggested as a possible cause for the typical decrease in per capita productivity observed with increasing colony size, a phenomenon known as Michener's paradox. Polydomy (distribution of a colony's brood and workers across multiple nests) is believed to help circumvent this paradox through its positive effect on foraging efficiency, but there is still little supporting evidence for this hypothesis. Here, we show experimentally that polydomy enhances the foraging performance of food-deprived Temnothorax nylanderi ant colonies via several mechanisms. First, polydo

SUBMITTER: Stroeymeyt N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5413928 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature