The non-additive effects of body size on nest architecture in a polymorphic ant.

ABSTRACT: Like traditional organisms, eusocial insect societies express traits that are the target of natural selection. Variation at the colony level emerges from the combined attributes of thousands of workers and may yield characteristics not predicted from individual phenotypes. By manipulating the ratios of worker types, the basis of complex, colony-level traits can be reduced to the additive and non-additive interactions of their component parts. In this study, we investigated the independent and synergistic effects of body size on nest architecture in a seasonally polymorphic harvester ant, Veromessor pergandei Using network analysis, we compared wax casts of nests, and found that mixed-size groups built longer nests, excavated more sand and produced greater architectural complexity than sing

SUBMITTER: Kwapich CL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6030580 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature