Effects of worker size on the dynamics of fire ANT tunnel construction

Journal of the Royal Society Interface

Volumn 9, Issue 77, 2012, Pages 3312-3322

  Gravish, Nick ^a   Garcia, Mateo ^a   Mazouchova, Nicole ^b   Levy, Laura ^b   Umbanhowar, Paul B ^c   Goodisman, Michael A D ^b   Goldman, Daniel I ^a  

^a School of Physics   (United States)

^b GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY   (United States)

^c Northwestern University   (United States)

Author keywords

Adaptive demography; Division of labour; Granular media; Nest construction; Network; Social insects

Indexed keywords

BIOPHYSICS; BIOTECHNOLOGY; NETWORKS (CIRCUITS);

ADAPTIVE DEMOGRAPHY; BEHAVIOURAL ASPECTS; BODY SIZES; DEGREE DISTRIBUTIONS; DIVISION OF LABOUR; EXCAVATED MATERIALS; GLASS PARTICLES; GRANULAR MEDIA; MORPHOLOGICAL FEATURES; SOCIAL INSECTS; SOLENOPSIS INVICTA; TOPOLOGICAL FEATURES; TUNNEL CONSTRUCTION; TUNNEL NETWORK;

TUNNELS;

GLASS;

ARTICLE; BODY SIZE; CONSTRUCTION WORK; CONTROLLED STUDY; INSECT SOCIETY; NONHUMAN; SOLENOPSIS; STRUCTURE ANALYSIS;

EID: 84868546644     PISSN: 17425689     EISSN: 17425662     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1098/rsif.2012.0423     Document Type: Article

References (58)

1. Hölldobler, B. & Wilson, E. O. 1990 The ants. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.
2. Hölldobler, B. & Wilson, E. O. 2009 The superorganism. New York, NY: WW Norton & Company.
3. Queller, D. C. & Strassmann, J. E. 1998 Kin selection and social insects. Bioscience 48, 165-175. (doi:10.2307/1313262)
4. Jones, J. C. & Oldroyd, B. P. 2007 Nest thermoregulation in social insects. Adv. Insect Physiol. 33, 153-191. (doi:10.1016/S0065-2806(06)33003-2)
5. Gould, J. & Gould, C. 2007 Animal architects: building and the evolution of intelligence. New York, NY: Basic Books.
6. Hansell, M. H. 2005 Animal architecture. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
7. Buhl, J., Deneubourg, J. L., Grimal, A. & Theraulaz, G. 2005 Self-organized digging activity in ant colonies. Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 58, 9-17. (doi:10.1007/s00265- 004-0906-2)
8. Gordon, D. M. 1996 The organization of work in social insect colonies. Nature 380, 121-124. (doi:10.1038/380121a0)
9. Greene, M. J. & Gordon, D. M. 2007 Interaction rate informs harvester ant task decisions. Behav. Ecol. 18, 451-455. (doi:10.1093/beheco/arl105)
10. Tschinkel, W. 2006 The fire ants. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.
11. Tschinkel, W. R. 2004 The nest architecture of the Florida harvester ant, Pogonomyrmex badius. J. Insect Sci. 4, 19.
12. Bourke, A. F. G. & Franks, N. R. 1995 Social evolution in ants. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
13. Banschbach, V. & Herbers, J. 1999 Nest movements and population spatial structure of the forest ant Myrmica punctiventris (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Ann. Entomol. Soc. Am. 92, 414-423.
14. Gordon, D. 1992 Nest relocation in harvester ants. Ann. Entomol. Soc. Am. 85, 44-47.
15. McGlynn, T., Carr, R., Carson, J. & Buma, J. 2004 Frequent nest relocation in the ant Aphaenogaster araneoides: resources, competition, and natural enemies. Oikos 106, 611-621. (doi:10.1111/j.0030-1299.2004. 13135.x)
16. Smallwood, J. 1982 Nest relocations in ants. Insectes Soc. 29, 138-147. (doi:10.1007/BF02228747)
17. Sudd, J. H. 1969 The excavation of soil by ants. Z. Tierpsychologie 26, 257-276. (doi:10.1111/j.1439- 0310.1969.tb01951.x)
18. Buhl, J., Deneubourg, J.-L. & Theraulaz, G. 2002 Self-organized networks of galleries in the ant Messor Sancta. In Ant algorithms (eds M. Dorigo, G. Di Caro & M. Sampels), pp. 147-172. Berlin, Germany: Springer.
19. Tschinkel, W. 2003 Subterranean ant nests: trace fossils past and future? Palaeogeogr. Palaeoclimatol. Palaeoecol. 192, 321-333. (doi:10.1016/S0031- 0182(02)00690-9)
20. Deneubourg, J. L. & Franks, N. R. 1995 Collective control without explicit coding - the case of communal nest excavation. J. Insect Behav. 8, 417-432. (doi:10.1007/BF01995316)
21. Theraulaz, G., Gautrais, J., Camazine, S. & Deneubourg, J. L. 2003 The formation of spatial patterns in social insects: from simple behaviours to complex structures. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. A 361, 1263-1282. (doi:10.1098/rsta.2003.1198)
22. Wilson, E. O. 1985 The sociogenesis of insect colonies. Science 228, 1489. (doi:10.1126/science.228.4707.1489)
23. Espinoza, D. N.& Santamarina, J. C. 2010 Ant tunneling - a granular media perspective. Granular Matter 12, 607-616. (doi:10.1007/s10035-010-0202-y)
24. Minter, N. J., Franks, N. R. & Brown, K. A. R. 2011 Morphogenesis of an extended phenotype: four-dimensional ant nest architecture. J. R. Soc. Interface. 9, 586-595. (doi:10.1098/rsif.2011.0377)
25. Rasse, P. & Deneubourg, J. L. 2001 Dynamics of nest excavation and nest size regulation of Lasius niger (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). J. Insect Behav. 14, 433-449. (doi:10.1023/A:1011163804217)
26. Su, N. Y. & Lee, S. H. 2009 Tunnel volume regulation and group size of subterranean termites (Isoptera: Rhinotermitidae). Ann. Entomol. Soc. Am. 102, 1158-1164. (doi:10.1603/008.102.0626)
27. Sudd, J. 1970 Specific patterns of excavation in isolated ants. Insectes Soci. 17, 253-260. (doi:10.1007/BF02224717)
28. Toffin, E., Di Paolo, D., Campo, A., Detrain, C. & Deneubourg, J.-L. 2009 Shape transition during nest digging in ants. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 106, 18 616- 18 620. (doi:10.1073/pnas.0902685106)
29. Toffin, E., Kindekens, J. & Deneubourg, J.-L. 2010 Excavated substrate modulates growth instability during nest building in ants. Proc. R. Soc. B 277, 2617-2625. (doi:10.1098/rspb.2010.0176)
30. Buhl, J., Gautrais, J., Deneubourg, J. L. & Theraulaz, G. 2004 Nest excavation in ants: group size effects on the size and structure of tunneling networks. Naturwissenschaften 91, 602-606. (doi:10.1007/s00114-004-0577-x)
31. Cassill, D. L. & Tschinkel, W. R. 1999 Task selection by workers of the fire ant Solenopsis invicta. Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 45, 301-310. (doi:10.1007/s002650050565)
32. Duarte, A., Weissing, F. J., Pen, I. & Keller, L. 2011 An evolutionary perspective on self-organized division of labor in social insects. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Evol. Syst. 42, 91-110. (doi:10.1146/annurev-ecolsys-102710- 145017)
33. Porter, S. D. & Tschinkel,W. R. 1985 Fire ant polymorphism - the ergonomics of brood production. Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 16, 323-336. (doi:10.1007/BF00295545)
34. Schmid-Hempel, P. 1992 Mini review: castes and adaptive demography worker. J. Evol. Biol. 5, 1-12. (doi:10.1046/j.1420-9101.1992.5010001.x)
35. Wilson, E. O. 1978 Division of labor in fire ants based on physical castes (Hymenoptera: Formicidae: Solenopsis). J. Kansas Entomol. Soc. 51, 615-636.
36. Tschinkel, W. R., Mikheyev, A. S. & Storz, S. R. 2003 Allometry of workers of the fire ant, Solenopsis invicta. J. Insect Sci. 3, 2.
37. Goodisman, M. A. D., Mack, P. D., Pearse, D. E. & Ross, K. G. 1999 Effects of a single gene on worker and male body mass in the fire ant Solenopsis invicta (Hymenoptera : Formicidae). Ann. Entomol. Soc. Am. 92, 563-570.
38. Goodisman, M. A. D. & Ross, K. G. 1996 Relationship of queen number and worker size in polygyne colonies of the fire ant Solenopsis invicta. Insectes Soc. 43, 303-307. (doi:10.1007/BF01242931)
39. Cassill, D. & Tschinkel, W. 2002 Nest complexity, group size and brood rearing in the fire ant, Solenopsis invicta. Insectes Soc. 49, 158-163. (doi:10.1007/s00040- 002-8296-9)
40. Markin, G. P. 1974 Foraging tunnels of the red imported fire ant, Solenopsis invicta. J. Kansas Entomol. Soc. 48, 84.
41. Tschinkel, W. R. 2011 The organization of foraging in the fire ant, Solenopsis invicta. J. Insect Sci. 11, 26.
42. Jouvenaz, D. P., Allen, G. E., Banks, W. A. & Wojcik, D. P. 1977 A survey for pathogens of fire ants, Solenopsisspp., in the southeastern United States. Florida Entomol. 60, 275-279. (doi:10.2307/3493922)
43. Buhl, J., Gautrais, J., Deneubourg, J. L., Kuntz, P. & Theraulaz, G. 2006 The growth and form of tunnelling networks in ants. J. Theor. Biol. 243, 287-298. (doi:10.1016/j.jtbi.2006.06.018)
44. Motulsky, H. J. & Ransnas, L. A. 1987 Fitting curves to data using nonlinear-regression: a practical and nonmathematical review. Faseb J. 1, 365-374.
45. Barthélemy, M. 2011 Spatial networks. Phys. Rep. 499, 1-101. (doi:10.1016/j.physrep.2010.11.002)
46. Calabi, P. & Porter, S. D. 1989 Worker longevity in the fire ant Solenopsis invicta - ergonomic considerations of correlations between temperature, size and metabolic rates. J. Insect Physiol. 35, 643-649. (doi:10.1016/0022- 1910(89)90127-3)
47. Hurlbert, A. H., Ballantyne, F. & Powell, S. 2008 Shaking a leg and hot to trot: the effects of body size and temperature on running speed in ants. Ecol. Entomol. 33, 144-154. (doi:10.1111/j.1365-2311.2007.00962.x)
48. Tschinkel, W. R. 1988 Colony growth and the ontogeny of worker polymorphism in the fire ant, Solenopsis invicta. Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 22, 103-115. (doi:10.1007/BF00303545)
49. Mirenda, J. 1981 Division of labour and specification of castes in the red imported fire ant Solenopsis invicta Buren. Anim. Behav. 29, 410-420.
50. Burd, M., Archer, D., Aranwela, N. & Stradling, D. J. 2002 Traffic dynamics of the leaf-cutting ant, Atta cephalotes. Am. Nat. 159, 283-293. (doi:10.1086/338541)
51. Dussutour, A., Beshers, S., Deneubourg, J. L. & Fourcassie, V. 2009 Priority rules govern the organization of traffic on foraging trails under crowding conditions in the leaf-cutting ant Atta colombica. J. Exp. Biol. 212, 499-505. (doi:10.1242/jeb.022988)
52. Fourcassie, V., Dussutour, A. & Deneubourg, J. L. 2010 Ant traffic rules. J. Exp. Biol. 213, 2357-2363. (doi:10.1242/jeb.031237)
53. Burd, M., Shiwakoti, N., Sarvi, M. & Rose, G. 2010 Nest architecture and traffic flow: large potential effects from small structural features. Ecol. Entomol. 35, 464-468.
54. Bardunias, P. & Su, N.-Y. 2009 Opposing headings of excavating and depositing termites facilitate branch formation in the Formosan subterranean termite. Anim. Behav. 78, 755-759. (doi:10.1016/j.anbehav. 2009.06.024)
55. Bardunias, P. M. & Su, N. Y. 2010 Queue size determines the width of tunnels in the Formosan subterranean termite (Isoptera: Rhinotermitidae). J. Insect Behav. 23, 189- 204. (doi:10.1007/s10905-010-9206-z)
56. Colorni, A., Dorigo, M. & Maniezzo, V. 1991 Distributed optimization by ant colonies. In Toward a practice of autonomous systems: Proc. of the First European Conference on Artificial Life, Paris, France, 11-13 December 1991 (eds F. J. Varela & P. Bourgine), pp. 134-142. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
57. Pontin, A. J. 1969 Experimental transplantation of nest-mounds of the ant Lasius flavus (F.) in a habitat containing also L. niger (L.) and Myrmica scabrinodis Nyl. J. Anim. Ecol. 38, 747-754. (doi:10.2307/3044)
58. Chen, J. 2009 Automatic system for continuously monitoring digging volume of red imported fire ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) in the laboratory. J. Econ. Entomol. 102, 1393-1395. (doi:10.1603/029.102.0369)