Characterizing the Collective Personality of Ant Societies: Aggressive Colonies Do Not Abandon Their Home

Autoren

Inon Scharf
Andreas P Modlmeier
Stephan Fries
Claire Tirard
Susanne Foitzik

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0033314

Editoren

Gonzalo G de Polavieja

eISSN

1932-6203

Ausgabe der Veröffentlichung

3

Zeitschrift

PLoS ONE

Sprache

en

Online publication date

2012

Paginierung

e33314 - e33314

Status

Published online

Herausgeber

Public Library of Science (PLoS)

Herausgeber URL

http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0033314

Datum der Datenerfassung

2024

Titel

Characterizing the Collective Personality of Ant Societies: Aggressive Colonies Do Not Abandon Their Home

Ausgabe der Zeitschrift

7

Datenquelle: Crossref

Abstract

Animal groups can show consistent behaviors or personalities just like solitary animals. We studied the collective behavior of Temnothorax nylanderi ant colonies, including consistency in behavior and correlations between different behavioral traits. We focused on four collective behaviors (aggression against intruders, nest relocation, removal of infected corpses and nest reconstruction) and also tested for links to the immune defense level of a colony and a fitness component (per-capita productivity). Behaviors leading to an increased exposure of ants to micro-parasites were expected to be positively associated with immune defense measures and indeed colonies that often relocated to other nest sites showed increased immune defense levels. Besides, colonies that responded with low aggression to intruders or failed to remove infected corpses, showed a higher likelihood to move to a new nest site. This resembles the trade-off between aggression and relocation often observed in solitary animals. Finally, one of the behaviors, nest reconstruction, was positively linked to per-capita productivity, whereas other colony-level behaviors, such as aggression against intruders, showed no association, albeit all behaviors were expected to be important for fitness under field conditions. In summary, our study shows that ant societies exhibit complex personalities that can be associated to the physiology and fitness of the colony. Some of these behaviors are linked in suites of correlated behaviors, similar to personalities of solitary animals.

Addresses

Institute of Zoology, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Mainz, Germany. scharfi@uni-mainz.de

Autoren

Inon Scharf
Andreas P Modlmeier
Stephan Fries
Claire Tirard
Susanne Foitzik

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0033314

eISSN

1932-6203

Externe Identifier

PubMed Identifier: 22457751
PubMed Central ID: PMC3310061

Open access

true

ISSN

1932-6203

Ausgabe der Veröffentlichung

3

Zeitschrift

PloS one

Schlüsselwörter

Animals
Ants
Likelihood Functions
Behavior, Animal
Aggression

Sprache

eng

Medium

Print-Electronic

Online publication date

2012

Open access status

Open Access

Paginierung

e33314

Datum der Veröffentlichung

2012

Status

Published

Publisher licence

CC BY

Datum der Datenerfassung

2012

Titel

Characterizing the collective personality of ant societies: aggressive colonies do not abandon their home.

Sub types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
research-article
Journal Article

Ausgabe der Zeitschrift

7

Files

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0033314&type=printable https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmid/22457751/pdf/?tool=EBI https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3310061?pdf=render

Datenquelle: Europe PubMed Central

Abstract

Animal groups can show consistent behaviors or personalities just like solitary animals. We studied the collective behavior of Temnothorax nylanderi ant colonies, including consistency in behavior and correlations between different behavioral traits. We focused on four collective behaviors (aggression against intruders, nest relocation, removal of infected corpses and nest reconstruction) and also tested for links to the immune defense level of a colony and a fitness component (per-capita productivity). Behaviors leading to an increased exposure of ants to micro-parasites were expected to be positively associated with immune defense measures and indeed colonies that often relocated to other nest sites showed increased immune defense levels. Besides, colonies that responded with low aggression to intruders or failed to remove infected corpses, showed a higher likelihood to move to a new nest site. This resembles the trade-off between aggression and relocation often observed in solitary animals. Finally, one of the behaviors, nest reconstruction, was positively linked to per-capita productivity, whereas other colony-level behaviors, such as aggression against intruders, showed no association, albeit all behaviors were expected to be important for fitness under field conditions. In summary, our study shows that ant societies exhibit complex personalities that can be associated to the physiology and fitness of the colony. Some of these behaviors are linked in suites of correlated behaviors, similar to personalities of solitary animals.

Date of acceptance

2012

Autoren

Inon Scharf
Andreas P Modlmeier
Stephan Fries
Claire Tirard
Susanne Foitzik

Autoren-URL

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22457751

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0033314

eISSN

1932-6203

Externe Identifier

PubMed Central ID: PMC3310061

Ausgabe der Veröffentlichung

3

Zeitschrift

PLoS One

Schlüsselwörter

Aggression
Animals
Ants
Behavior, Animal
Likelihood Functions

Sprache

eng

Country

United States

Paginierung

e33314

PII

PONE-D-11-20558

Datum der Veröffentlichung

2012

Status

Published

Datum, an dem der Datensatz öffentlich gemacht wurde

2012

Titel

Characterizing the collective personality of ant societies: aggressive colonies do not abandon their home.

Sub types

Journal Article
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Ausgabe der Zeitschrift

7

Datenquelle: PubMed

Characterizing the Collective Personality of Ant Societies: Aggressive Colonies Do Not Abandon Their Home

Files

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