Individual experience influences reconstruction of division of labour under colony disturbance in a queenless ant species.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Division of labour (DOL) is ubiquitous across biological hierarchies. In eusocial insects, DOL is often characterized by age-related task allocation, but workers can flexibly change their tasks, allowing for DOL reconstruction in fluctuating environments. Behavioural change driven by individual experience is regarded as a key to understanding this task flexibility. However, experimental evidence for the influence of individual experience is remains sparse. Here we tested the effect of individual experience on task choice in the queenless ponerine ant, Diacamma cf. indicum from Japan.

Results

We confirmed that both nurses and foragers shifted to vacant tasks when the colony composition was biased to one or the other. We also found that nurses which are induced to f

SUBMITTER: Tanaka Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9202139 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature