Flexibility in Collective Behaviour: Space Use, Competition and Polydomy in the Ant Temnothorax rugatulus

• Antragstellerin: Dr. Amelie Schmolke
• Fachliche Zuordnung: Biologie des Verhaltens und der Sinne
• Förderung: Förderung von 2005 bis 2008
• Projektkennung: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Projektnummer 14149597

At first glance, an ant colony acts like an organism. However, its behavioural patterns are assembled by many autonomously acting individuals. How do individuals contribute to the collective behaviour of an ant colony? How adaptive is the whole system, i.e. the colony, and is the flexibility due to individual abilities or to selforganisation? I will approach these questions in the field of spatial behaviour by combining experiments using the ant Temnothorax rugatulus and individual-based modelling. I will focus on three aspects of collective behaviour. (1) The space use by individuals will be compared with colony space use, and I will investigate effects of changing resource distributions and environmental structure. The impact of space use on foraging success will be quantified. (2) Space use will also influence the interaction between colonies foraging in the same area. (3) I will investigate the costs and benefits of partitioning a colony over multiple nest sites (polydomy), and the factors that cause this behaviour. These points will be studied experimentally, and in addition, modelling will enable me to quantify the influence of individual strategies and information processing abilities on colony behaviour.

• DFG-Verfahren: Forschungsstipendien
• Internationaler Bezug: USA
• Gastgeberin: Professorin Dr. Anna Dornhaus