Flexibility in Collective Behaviour: Space Use, Competition and Polydomy in the Ant Temnothorax rugatulus
Final Report Abstract
One of the most striking characteristics of social insects is the sophisticated collective behavior that arises from the interactions of individuals. The strategies and abilities of individuals in a colony are the building blocks of collective behavior, and they may shape social behavior even in the absence of mechanisms such as mass recruitment. In my project, I focused on the contribution of individual behaviors on the whole colony. More specifically, I investigated strategies of ant foraging that do not include mass recruitment or communication between foragers outside of the nest. Temnothorax rugatulus is characterized by small colonies (usually not more than a few hundred individuals) and small individuals. Accordingly, the activity of a whole colony can be observed in the laboratory. Additionally, T. rugatulus does not engage in mass recruitment, and thus, independent individual behavior upon foraging is displayed. Polydomy constitutes a special case for the foraging of an ant colony, and has also been described as dispersed central place foraging. To investigate both, individual foraging strategies and polydomy I coupled computer simulation with laboratory experiments using ant colonies.
Publications
- Graduate seminar for agent-based modeling, Ecology and Evolutionary
Biology, University of Arizona, October 2005, Tucson, AZ
- Seminar of the Department Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University
of Arizona, November 2005, Tucson, AZ
- Congress of the International Union for the Study of Social Insects
(IUSSI), July 30 - August 6, 2006, Washington, DC
- Seminar of the Department Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University
of Arizona, November 2006, Tucson, AZ
- Seminar of the Department of Ecological Modelling, Helmholtz Centre
for Environmental Research (UFZ), November 2006, Leipzig
- Seminar of the Institute of Zoology, University of Regensburg, November
2006, Regensburg
