Abstract
Social insect colonies use interactions among workers to regulate collective behavior. Harvester ant foragers interact in a chamber just inside the nest entrance, here called the 'entrance chamber'. Previous studies of the activation of foragers in red harvester ants show that an outgoing forager inside the nest experiences an increase in brief antennal contacts before it leaves the nest to forage. Here we compare the interaction rate experienced by foragers that left the nest and ants that did not. We found that ants in the entrance chamber that leave the nest to forage experienced more interactions than ants that descend to the deeper nest without foraging. Additionally, we found that the availability of foragers in the entrance chamber is associated with the rate of forager return. An increase in the rate of forager return leads to an increase in the rate at which ants descend to the deeper nest, which then stimulates more ants to ascend into the entrance chamber. Thus a higher rate of forager return leads to more available foragers in the entrance chamber. The highest density of interactions occurs near the nest entrance and the entrances of the tunnels from the entrance chamber to the deeper nest. Local interactions with returning foragers regulate both the activation of waiting foragers and the number of foragers available to be activated.
Highlights
MethodsData were collected over the course of one week in August 2012 and two weeks in August 2013 at the site of a long-term study in Rodeo, New Mexico [37]
A fundamental question in the study of animal behavior and other networks is how simple individual behaviors add up to complex collective behaviors [1]. Distributed networks, including those found in natural populations, are regulated using feedback based on local interactions
The entrance tunnels lead into an entrance chamber approximately 8cm wide, and from this chamber, tunnels descend into the deeper nest (Fig 1)
Summary
Data were collected over the course of one week in August 2012 and two weeks in August 2013 at the site of a long-term study in Rodeo, New Mexico [37]. Gordon’s long-term study site is owned by Stanford University, and no permission was required to work on the site. This study did not involve any endangered or protected species. Nests of P. barbatus have an entrance approximately 2cm in diameter, which leads to one or more entrance tunnels approximately 5cm long. The entrance tunnels lead into an entrance chamber approximately 8cm wide, and from this chamber, tunnels descend into the deeper nest (Fig 1)
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