Abstract
Age-based polyethism, wherein young individuals perform tasks within the nest and later transition to outside activities, is common among many social insects. This division of labor ensures the safety of workers with longer residual lifespans, such as brood caring nurses, and exposes only old individuals to increased extrinsic mortality risks. It appears however, that lifespan in workers is also shaped by intrinsic factors, such as senescence. The transition from nurse to forager is accompanied by various physiological and behavioral changes and seems to represent a crucial step in determining the subsequent life history of the individual. Here we investigate the daily activity pattern and detailed division of labor in colonies of the clonal ant Platythyrea punctata to better understand the dynamics of age polyethism in this peculiar species. We found that P. punctata colonies were mostly active during the day. At night, few workers were observed out of their nests. Workers showed a decrease in brood care and aggressive behavior over time. With increasing age individuals spent more time outside the nest and were more frequently observed walking. However, the transition to outside tasks did not follow a consistent time pattern in all colonies. Workers transitioning at a younger age seemed to die earlier than workers that began to forage later in life.
Highlights
The elaborate division of labor of eusocial insects, such as ants, bees, wasps, and termites, is one important factor responsible for their ecological and evolutionary success (Wilson 1971, 1985; Hölldobler and Wilson 1990)
Age-based polyethism has been described for numerous species of social insects including the clonal ant Platythyrea punctata (Hartmann and Heinze 2003; Bernadou et al 2015)
In this study we examined in more detail daily activity patterns of colonies and division of non-reproductive labor in P. punctata, focusing on the influence of the age of first foraging on residual life span
Summary
The elaborate division of labor of eusocial insects, such as ants, bees, wasps, and termites, is one important factor responsible for their ecological and evolutionary success (Wilson 1971, 1985; Hölldobler and Wilson 1990). Many eusocial insect species display temporal or age-based polyethism, wherein workers successively pass through phases of performing specific tasks as they age (Oster and Wilson 1978; Robinson 1992; Beshers and Fewell 2001). Young individuals typically focus on tasks in the nest and switch to working outside when they are older (Wilson 1971; Oster and Wilson 1978). This transition involves considerable behavioral, transcriptomic, and physiological changes, including altered hormone and protein levels, a decline in immunity, and accelerated aging
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