Menu utilisateur

Accès à distance ? S'identifier sur le proxy UCLouvain

Recruitment in starved nests: the role of direct and indirect interactions between scouts and nestmates in the ant Lasius niger

Onglets principaux

Mailleux, Anne-Catherine [UCL] Buffin, Aurelie [Universite libre de Bruxelles] Detrain, Claire [Universite libre de Bruxelles] Deneubourg, Jean-Louis [Universite libre de Bruxelles]

In social insects, the foraging activity usually increases with the length of food deprivation. In Lasius niger, a mass-recruiting ant species, the foraging adjustment to the level of food deprivation is regulated by the scout that fed at the food source and by the response of the nestmates to signals performed by the scout inside the nest. In this study, we look at the role of these direct interactions (antennations or trophallaxes) and indirect interactions (pheromonal emission) and how they are influenced by the level of food deprivation. At the beginning of recruitment,the relative number of nestmates leaving the nest to forage increases with the level of deprivation. The nestmates’propensity to exit the nest is not influenced by a previous trophallactic and/or antennal contact with a scout. Our results strongly suggest that the exit of nestmates is triggered by a chemical signal emitted by a scout. Deprivation lowers the response threshold of nestmates to this chemical signal resulting in a more important exit from the nest. Surprisingly, 27% of starved nestmates that receive food from the scout relay the information by depositing a chemical signal before having discovered and drunk the food source. Both phenomena boost the recruitment process. Though successful foragers returning to the nest have a significant role in the recruitment to the food source, we observed that the response of the nestmates inside the nest also greatly influence regulation of the foraging activity.

Type de document Article de périodique (Journal article) – Article de recherche
Type d'accès Accès restreint
Année de publication 2011
Langue Anglais
Information sur le périodique "Insectes Sociaux" - Vol. 58, no. 4, p. 559-567 (2011)
Peer reviewed oui
Editeur Birkhaeuser Verlag AG ((Switzerland) Basel)
issn 0020-1812
e-issn 1420-9098
Statut de la publication Publié
Affiliations UCL - SST/ELI/ELIB - Biodiversity
Universite libre de Bruxelles - Service d’Ecologie Sociale
Universite libre de Bruxelles - Service d’Ecologie Social
Mots-clés 3123
Liens
  1. Anderson C. and Ratnieks F.L.W. 1999. Task partitioning in insect societies. I. Effect of colony size on queueing delay and colony ergonomic efficiency. Am. Nat. 154: 521-535
  2. Auclair J.L. 1963. Aphid feeding and nutrition. Annu. Rev. Entomol. 8: 439-489
  3. Beckers R., Deneubourg J.-L. and Goss S. 1993. Modulation of trail-laying in the ant Lasius niger (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) and its role in the collective selection of a food source. J. Insect Behav. 6: 751-759
  4. Baroni-Urbani C., Buser M.W. and Schilliger E. 1988. Substrate vibration during recruitment in ant social organization. Insect. Soc. 35: 241-250
  5. Buffin A., Denis D., Van Simaeys G., Goldman S. and Deneubourg J.-L. 2009. Feeding and stocking up: radio-labelled food reveals exchange patterns in ants. Plos One 4: e5919
  6. Cartar R.V. and Dill L.M. 1990. Why are bumblebees risk sensitive foragers? Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 26: 121-127
  7. Cassill D.L. 2003. Rules of supply and demand regulate recruitment to food in the fire ant, Solenopsis invicta. Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 54: 441-450
  8. Cassill D.L. and Tschinkel W.R. 1999a. Information flow during social feeding in ant societies. Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 29: 255-261
  9. Cassill D.L. and Tschinkel W.R. 1999b. Regulation of diet in the fire ant, Solenopsis invicta. J. Insect Behav. 12: 307-328
  10. Cook S.C., Eubanks M.D., Gold R.E. and Behmer S.T. 2010. Colony-level macronutrient regulation in ants: mechanisms, hoarding and associated costs. Anim. Behav. 79: 429-437
  11. Cosens D. and Toussaint N. 1986. The dynamic nature of the activities of the wood ant Formica aquilonia foraging to static food resource within a laboratory habitat. Physiol. Entomol. 11: 383-395
  12. Devigne C. and Detrain C. 2002. Collective exploration and area making in the ant Lasius niger. Insect. Soc. 49: 357-362
  13. De Biseau J.C. and Pasteels J.M. 1994. Regulated food recruitment through individual behavior of scouts in the ant, Myrmica sabuleti (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). J. Insect Behav. 7: 767-777
  14. De Marco R.J. 2006. How bees tune their dancing according to their colony’s nectar influx: re-examining the role of the food-receivers’ ‘eagerness’. J. Exp. Biol. 209: 421-432
  15. Dussutour A. and Simpson S.J. 2009. Communal nutrition in ants. Curr. Biol. 19: 740-744
  16. Farina W.M. and Grüter C. 2009. Trophallaxis – a mechanism of information transfer. In: Food Exploitation by Social Insects: Ecological, Behavioral, and Theoretical Approaches (Hrncir M. and Jarau S., Eds). Boca Raton, CRC Press. pp 173-187
  17. Gotceitas V. and Godin J.-G. 2004. Foraging under the risk of predation in juvenile Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar L.): effects of social status and hunger. Anim. Behav. 67: 1083-1088
  18. Hart A.G. and Ratnieks F.L.W. 2001. Task partitioning, division of labour and nest compartmentalisation collectively isolate hazardous waste in the leafcutting ant Atta cephalotes. Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 49: 387-392
  19. Hölldobler B. 1971. Recruitment behavior in Camponotus socius (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Z. Vergl. Physiol. 75: 123-142
  20. Hölldobler B. 1985. Liquid food transmission and antennation signals in ponerine ants. Isr. J. Entomol. 14: 89-99
  21. Hölldobler B. and Wilson E.O. 1990. The Ants. Harvard Univ. Press Cambridge, MA. 732 pp
  22. Howard D.F. and Tschinkel W.R. 1980. The effect of colony size and deprivation on food flow in the fire ant Solenopsis invicta (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 7: 293-300
  23. Josens R.B. and Roces F. 2000. Foraging in the ant Camponotus mus: nectar-intake and crop filling depend on colony deprivation. J. Insect Physiol. 46: 1103-1110
  24. Kaplan I. and Eubanks M. 2005. Aphids alter the community-wide impact of fire ants. Ecology 86: 1640-1649
  25. Lenoir A. 1979. Le comportement alimentaire et la division du travail chez la fourmi Lasius niger. Bull. Biol. Fr. Belg. 113: 79-314
  26. Liefke C., Hölldober B. and Maschwitz U. 2001. Recruitment behavior in the ant genus Polyrhachis (Hymenoptera, Formicidae). J. Insect Behav. 14: 637-659
  27. Mc Cabe S., Farina W.M. and Josens R.B. 2006. Antennation of nectar-receivers encodes colony needs and food-source profitability in the ant Camponotus mus. Insect. Soc. 53: 356-361
  28. Mailleux A.-C., Detrain C. and Deneubourg J.-L. 2003. Regulation of ants’ foraging to resource productivity. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B 270: 1609-1616
  29. Mailleux A.-C., Detrain C. and Deneubourg J.-L. 2006. Deprivation drives a threshold triggering communication. J. Exp. Biol. 209: 4224-4229
  30. Mailleux A.-C., Detrain C. and Deneubourg J.-L. 2010. Impact of starvation on Lasius niger exploration. Ethology 116: 248-256
  31. Nonacs P. and Dill L.M. 1990. Mortality risk vs food quality trade-offs in a common currency: ant patch preferences. Ecology 71: 1886-1892
  32. Portha S., Deneubourg J.-L. and Detrain C. 2002 Self-organized asymmetries in ant foraging: a functional response to food type and colony needs. Behav. Ecol. 13: 776-781
  33. Roces F. and Nuñez J.A. 1993. Information about food quality influences load-size selection in recruited leaf-cutting ants. Anim. Behav. 45: 135-143
  34. Roces F. and Hölldobler B. 1996. Use of stridulation in foraging leaf cutting ants: Mechanical support during cutting or short range recruitment signal? Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 39: 293-299
  35. Sakata H. 1995. Density-dependant predation of the ant Lasius niger (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) on two attended aphids Lachnus tropicallis and Myzocallis kuricola (Homoptera: Aphididae). Res. Popul. Ecol. 37: 159-164
  36. Schafer R.J., Holmes S. and Gordon D.M. 2006. Forager activation and food availability in harvester ants. Anim. Behav. 71: 815-822
  37. Schulz D.J., Huang Z.Y. and Robinson G.E. 1998. Effects of colony food shortage on behavioural development in honeybees. Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 42: 295-303
  38. Schulz D.J., Vermiglio M.J., Huang Z.Y. and Robinson G.E. 2002. Effects of colony food shortage on social action in honeybees. Insect. Soc. 49: 50-55
  39. Seeley T.D. 1989. Social foraging in honey bees: how nectar foragers assess their colony’s nutritional status. Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 24: 181-199
  40. Sendova-Franks A.B., Hayward R.K., Wulf B., Klimek T., James R., Planque R., Britton N.F. and Franks N.R. 2010. Emergency networking: famine relief in ant colonies. Anim. Behav. 79: 473-485
  41. Smiseth P.T. and Moore A.J. 2004. Signaling of hunger when offspring forage by both begging and self-feeding. Anim. Behav. 67: 1083-1088
  42. Stephens D.W. and Krebs J.R. 1986. Foraging Theory. Princeton University Press, New Jersey, USA. 247 pp
  43. Stuart R.J. and Moffett M.W. 1994. Recruitment communication and pheromone trails in the Neotropical ants, Leptothorax (Nesomyrmex) spininodis and L (N.). echinatinodis. Experientia 50: 850-852
  44. Szlep-Fessel R. 1970. The regulatory mechanism in mass foraging and the recruitment of soldiers Pheidole. Insect. Soc. 17: 233-244
  45. Sudd J.H. and Sudd M.E. 1985. Seasonal changes in the response of wood-ants (Formica lugubris) to sucrose baits. Ecol. Entomol. 10: 89-97
  46. Traniello J.F. 1977. Resource assessment, recruitment behavior,and organization of cooperative prey retrieval in the ant Formica schaufussi (Hymenoptera). J. Insect Behav. 11: 1-22
  47. Theraulaz G., Gervet J. and Semenoff Tian-Chanski S. 1991. Social regulation of foraging activities in Polistes dominulus Christ: a systemic approach to behavioural organization. Behaviour 116: 292-320
  48. Toth A.L., Kantarovitch S., Meisel A.F. and Robinson G.E. 2005. Nutritional status influences socially regulated foraging ontogeny in honey bees. J. Exp. Biol. 208: 4641-4649
  49. Völkl W., Woodring J., Fisher M., Lorenz M.W. and Hoffmann K.H. 1999. Ant-aphid mutualisms: the impact of honeydew production and honeydew sugar composition on ant preferences. Oecologia 118: 483-491
  50. Wallis D.I. 1962. The relation between hunger, activity and worker function in an ant colony. Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond. B 139: 589-605
  51. Wheeler W.M. 1910. The Ants. Their Structure, Development and Behaviour. New York: Columbia University Press. 663 pp
  52. Wilson E.O. 1962. Chemical communication among workers of the fire ant Solenopsis saevissima (Fr. Smith) 1. The organization of mass-foraging. Anim. Behav. 10: 134-147
  53. De Biseau J.C. and Pasteels J.M. 2000. Response thresholds to recruitment signals and the regulation of foraging intensity in the ant Myrmica sabuleti (Hymenoptera, Formicidae). Behav. Proc. 48: 137-148
Référence bibliographique Mailleux, Anne-Catherine ; Buffin, Aurelie ; Detrain, Claire ; Deneubourg, Jean-Louis. Recruitment in starved nests: the role of direct and indirect interactions between scouts and nestmates in the ant Lasius niger. In: Insectes Sociaux, Vol. 58, no. 4, p. 559-567 (2011)
Permalien http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/87764