Colonial colonial behavior changes after winning

The colonial ants attacked other colonies: Robbing and killing other colonial soldiers' ants or keeping enemy ants as slave ants. Colonial ants are often considered the prototypes of social life: The ant ants are willing to sacrifice their lives for the community, but they can also display extremely aggressive behavior, especially when traveling serving other ant groups.

The development and behavior of ants, especially the social relations between slave ants and slave owners, this is the research topic of a group of researchers, headed by professors - Dr. Susanne Foitzik at the Institute of Zoology, Johannes Gutenberg University, in Mainz, Germany. Biologists evolved at Johannes Gutenberg, in Mainz, Germany found in colonial ant colonies, slave ants worked more efficiently and nurtured more larvae, because they seemed to have been transformed from worker ants to other ants, and became worker ants in this colony ant colony. This transformation after this invasion can be part of the re-division of social labor, which is considered the basis of the success of colonial ant society.

Ants Temnothorax Longispinosus

There are more than 15,000 ant species in the world. Currently, in Europe, about one-third of 150 species of ants host, ie, these ants live on the care and service of slave ants caught in other ants. This is really the " slave ant - slave master " relationship and is being studied with special attention of scientists at Johannes Gutenberg University, in Mainz, Germany. Temnothorax ants Longispinosus is not one of the species that specialize in slavery, but they can still be enslaved by the same kind at another ant colony , after being a victim of an invasion , T. slaves, Longispinosus will become a worker ant in search of food and care for the slave owner. Ant T. Longispinosus lives in oak forest, in the northeastern United States, where they build nests in berries, pecans, and small branches. They form an average colony of about 35 worker ants and mostly insect-eating food. The worker ants are usually very small, only 2 to 3mm in length.

" The ants Temnothorax Longispinosus are particularly suitable for our experiments, because their nests are very easy to hold in the laboratory, which allows us to study large ant nests ", according to Andreas Modlmeier , who is investigating the " personality " of colonial ants for his doctoral thesis. The concept of " personality " of colonial ants has gained support among behavioral scientists in recent years. " We think colonial ants have a personality, but each member of this colony also has a personality trait," Susanne Foitzik explained. One of such characteristics is aggression. Colonial ants are really aggressive, for example, rarely see them fleeing from dangerous places like other species do.

In this experiment, Modlmeier studied the individual behavior of colonial ants when confining them together with a worker of another colony who had died and observed the frequency of aggressive interactions. out. Modlmeier found activity such as opening the lower jaw (to threaten), biting, pulling, and stinging. 10 worker ants were selected from 39 different colonies classified according to their size, extent of aggression. , and exploration behavior. This indicates that the productivity of weaver ant colonies is measured by the biomass of the total number of new worker ants and the increase in the number of worker ants taking place along with the change in the level of aggression within the colonies. In other words, this correlates with the differences shown at the level of aggression in each set of 10 worker ants in the experiment.

According to Modlmeier's assumption: colonial ants can work more effectively when defense missions, nesting and taking care of queen ants and larvae are assigned between soldier ants, worker ants and even slave ants. Different levels of aggression. High-level soldier ants can participate in competition and battle with other colonies, while less aggressive ants will actively take care of the larvae. One remarkable finding is that not all 39 colonial ant colonies are aggressive. Not all colonial ants are completely aggressive. It seems that excessive aggression is not beneficial in the natural world and can lead to disadvantages, Modlmeier assumes.

Previous research results also suggest that there is a link between worker character or behavior and colonial division of labor, and this may be the basis for success. Ecological merit of ant species society , but this hypothesis has not been proven. Modlmeier provided the first evidence of experimental change in behavioral models, which could be the basis of the division of labor in ants, improving productivity and thereby creating the symmetry of populations. in ant species society.

Studies on behavior and personality characteristics of colonial ants have been funded as part of the project " Meaning of evolution in behavior, morphology, genetic composition and authority exemption translated in colonial ants in the same flock and in different flocks, "funded by the German Research Fund since November 2010.