TY - JOUR
T1 - Polydomy enhances foraging performance in ant colonies
AU - Stroeymeyt, N.
AU - Joye, P.
AU - Keller, L.
PY - 2017/4/26
Y1 - 2017/4/26
N2 - 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 showexperimentally that polydomy enhances the foraging performance of food-deprived Temnothorax nylanderi ant colonies via several mechanisms. First, polydomy influences task allocation within colonies, resulting in faster retrieval of protein resources. Second, communication between sister nests reduces search times for far away resources. Third, colonies move queens, brood and workers across available nest sites in response to spatial heterogeneities in protein and carbohydrate resources. This suggests that polydomy represents a flexible mechanism for space occupancy, helping ant colonies adjust to the environment.
AB - 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 showexperimentally that polydomy enhances the foraging performance of food-deprived Temnothorax nylanderi ant colonies via several mechanisms. First, polydomy influences task allocation within colonies, resulting in faster retrieval of protein resources. Second, communication between sister nests reduces search times for far away resources. Third, colonies move queens, brood and workers across available nest sites in response to spatial heterogeneities in protein and carbohydrate resources. This suggests that polydomy represents a flexible mechanism for space occupancy, helping ant colonies adjust to the environment.
KW - Ants
KW - Dispersed central-place foraging
KW - Division of labour
KW - Michener’s paradox
KW - Outstations
KW - Polydomy
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85019140610&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1098/rspb.2017.0269
DO - 10.1098/rspb.2017.0269
M3 - Article (Academic Journal)
C2 - 28446699
AN - SCOPUS:85019140610
VL - 284
JO - Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
JF - Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
SN - 0962-8452
IS - 1853
M1 - 20170269
ER -