Abstract
A colony of red wood ants can inhabit more than one spatially separated nest, in a strategy called polydomy. Some nests within these polydomous colonies have no foraging trails to aphid colonies in the canopy. In this study we identify and investigate the possible roles of non-foraging nests in polydomous colonies of the wood ant Formica lugubris. To investigate the role of non-foraging nests we: (i) monitored colonies for three years; (ii) observed the resources being transported between non-foraging nests and the rest of the colony; (iii) measured the amount of extra-nest activity around non-foraging and foraging nests. We used these datasets to investigate the extent to which non-foraging nests within polydomous colonies are acting as: part of the colony expansion process; hunting and scavenging specialists; brood-development specialists; seasonal foragers; or a selfish strategy exploiting the foraging effort of the rest of the colony. We found that, rather than having a specialised role, non-foraging nests are part of the process of colony expansion. Polydomous colonies expand by founding new nests in the area surrounding the existing nests. Nests founded near food begin foraging and become part of the colony; other nests are not founded near food sources and do not initially forage. Some of these non-foraging nests eventually begin foraging; others do not and are abandoned. This is a method of colony growth not available to colonies inhabiting a single nest, and may be an important advantage of the polydomous nesting strategy, allowing the colony to expand into profitable areas.
Highlights
Foraging is a fundamental part of the life-history strategy of animals
The non-foraging nests which change to become foraging nests are significantly closer to trees, relative to other nests in the colony, than newly founded nests which remain as non-foraging nests (AoD6, χ2 = 4.21, df = 1, p = 0.04)
This supports the hypothesis that non-foraging nests are part of the process of colony expansion in F. lugubris because it suggests a mechanism by which polydomous colonies expand: new nests are founded some of which happen to be non-foraging, of these non-foraging nests those which are near to trees become foraging nests in time and those which are further away from trees do not
Summary
Foraging is a fundamental part of the life-history strategy of animals. The foraging strategy employed by an animal is dictated by a variety of factors, such as: the type of food resource, the competition for food resources, season and climate [1]. Ants employ a wide range of foraging strategies [2]. This diversity of foraging strategy is likely to be an important factor allowing ants to exploit a wide variety of food sources in a diverse range of habitats [2]. Foraging to honeydew-producing aphids in the canopy provides the majority of the food for red wood ant (Formica rufa group) colonies [3]. Red wood ants travel along well-defined trails
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