Why do not all workers work? Colony size and workload during emigrations in the ant Temnothorax albipennis

By Anna R. Dornhaus, Jo-anne C. Holley, Victoria G. Pook, G. Worswick., Nigel R. Franks. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 2008

116 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Here, we study distribution of workload and its relationship to colony size among worker ants of Temnothorax albipennis, in the context of colony emigrations. We find that one major aspect of workload, number of items transported by each worker, was more evenly distributed in larger colonies. By contrast, in small colonies, a small number of individuals perform most of the work in this task (in one colony, a single ant transported 57% of all items moved in the emigration). Transporters in small colonies carried more items to the new nest per individual and achieved a higher overall efficiency in transport (more items moved per transporter and unit time). Our results suggest that small colonies may be extremely dependent on a few key individuals. In studying colony organisation and division of labour, the amount of work performed by each individual, not just task repertoire (which tasks are performed at all), should be taken into account.

Subfields: Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Genetics, Insect Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/13b37e84adc77098df896b06d3749fab12544eca

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

1. I. Pen
2. Franz J. Weissing
3. Laurent Keller
4. C. Holbrook
5. J. Fewell
6. S. Foitzik
7. R. Gold
8. S. Cook

In Genetics

1. Laurent Keller
2. Franz J. Weissing
3. J. Fewell
4. I. Pen
5. S. Foitzik
6. R. Gold
7. S. Cook
8. M. Eubanks

In Insect Science

1. Laurent Keller
2. J. Fewell
3. S. Cook
4. M. Eubanks
5. S. Behmer
6. I. Kaplan
7. W. E. Snyder
8. David Raubenheimer

Citations in the corpus

• Productivity increases with variation in aggression among group members in Temnothorax ants (2011, background): “However, recent studies found varying relationships between colony size and productivity, including positive, negative, and no clear relationships (for references, see Dornhaus et al. 2008).”
• Colony-level macronutrient regulation in ants: mechanisms, hoarding and associated costs (2010, background): “Furthermore, colony size is associated with the distribution of task assignment among individuals in insect societies (Jeanson et al. 2007; Dornhaus et al. 2008); a factor that is likely to be correlated with some aforementioned points.”
• Division of labor increases with colony size in the harvester ant Pogonomyrmex californicus (2011, background): “Colony size has an opposite effect in T. albipenis; intracolonial distributions of workload during nest emigration are more skewed in smaller colonies (Dornhaus et al. 2008).”
• An Evolutionary Perspective on Self-Organized Division of Labor in Social Insects (2011, background): “In the ant Temnothorax albipennis, large colonies have larger proportions of brood-carrying specialists than small colonies (Dornhaus et al. 2008).”