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The construction of ventilation turrets in Atta vollenweideri leaf-cutting ants: Carbon dioxide levels in the nest tunnels, but not airflow or air humidity, influence turret structure

Nest ventilation in the leaf-cutting ant Atta vollenweideri is driven via a wind-induced mechanism. On their nests, workers construct small turrets that are expected to facilitate nest ventilation. We hypothesized that the construction and structural features of the turrets would depend on the colon...

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Autores principales: Halboth, Florian, Roces, Flavio
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5690471/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29145459
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0188162
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author Halboth, Florian
Roces, Flavio
author_facet Halboth, Florian
Roces, Flavio
author_sort Halboth, Florian
collection PubMed
description Nest ventilation in the leaf-cutting ant Atta vollenweideri is driven via a wind-induced mechanism. On their nests, workers construct small turrets that are expected to facilitate nest ventilation. We hypothesized that the construction and structural features of the turrets would depend on the colony’s current demands for ventilation and thus might be influenced by the prevailing environmental conditions inside the nest. Therefore, we tested whether climate-related parameters, namely airflow, air humidity and CO(2) levels in the outflowing nest air influenced turret construction in Atta vollenweideri. In the laboratory, we simulated a semi-natural nest arrangement with fungus chambers, a central ventilation tunnel providing outflow of air and an aboveground building arena for turret construction. In independent series, different climatic conditions inside the ventilation tunnel were experimentally generated, and after 24 hours, several features of the built turret were quantified, i.e., mass, height, number and surface area (aperture) of turret openings. Turret mass and height were similar in all experiments even when no airflow was provided in the ventilation tunnel. However, elevated CO(2) levels led to the construction of a turret with several minor openings and a larger total aperture. This effect was statistically significant at higher CO(2) levels of 5% and 10% but not at 1% CO(2). The construction of a turret with several minor openings did not depend on the strong differences in CO(2) levels between the outflowing and the outside air, since workers also built permeated turrets even when the CO(2) levels inside and outside were both similarly high. We propose that the construction of turrets with several openings and larger opening surface area might facilitate the removal of CO(2) from the underground nest structure and could therefore be involved in the control of nest climate in leaf-cutting ants.
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spelling pubmed-56904712017-11-30 The construction of ventilation turrets in Atta vollenweideri leaf-cutting ants: Carbon dioxide levels in the nest tunnels, but not airflow or air humidity, influence turret structure Halboth, Florian Roces, Flavio PLoS One Research Article Nest ventilation in the leaf-cutting ant Atta vollenweideri is driven via a wind-induced mechanism. On their nests, workers construct small turrets that are expected to facilitate nest ventilation. We hypothesized that the construction and structural features of the turrets would depend on the colony’s current demands for ventilation and thus might be influenced by the prevailing environmental conditions inside the nest. Therefore, we tested whether climate-related parameters, namely airflow, air humidity and CO(2) levels in the outflowing nest air influenced turret construction in Atta vollenweideri. In the laboratory, we simulated a semi-natural nest arrangement with fungus chambers, a central ventilation tunnel providing outflow of air and an aboveground building arena for turret construction. In independent series, different climatic conditions inside the ventilation tunnel were experimentally generated, and after 24 hours, several features of the built turret were quantified, i.e., mass, height, number and surface area (aperture) of turret openings. Turret mass and height were similar in all experiments even when no airflow was provided in the ventilation tunnel. However, elevated CO(2) levels led to the construction of a turret with several minor openings and a larger total aperture. This effect was statistically significant at higher CO(2) levels of 5% and 10% but not at 1% CO(2). The construction of a turret with several minor openings did not depend on the strong differences in CO(2) levels between the outflowing and the outside air, since workers also built permeated turrets even when the CO(2) levels inside and outside were both similarly high. We propose that the construction of turrets with several openings and larger opening surface area might facilitate the removal of CO(2) from the underground nest structure and could therefore be involved in the control of nest climate in leaf-cutting ants. Public Library of Science 2017-11-16 /pmc/articles/PMC5690471/ /pubmed/29145459 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0188162 Text en © 2017 Halboth, Roces http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Halboth, Florian
Roces, Flavio
The construction of ventilation turrets in Atta vollenweideri leaf-cutting ants: Carbon dioxide levels in the nest tunnels, but not airflow or air humidity, influence turret structure
title The construction of ventilation turrets in Atta vollenweideri leaf-cutting ants: Carbon dioxide levels in the nest tunnels, but not airflow or air humidity, influence turret structure
title_full The construction of ventilation turrets in Atta vollenweideri leaf-cutting ants: Carbon dioxide levels in the nest tunnels, but not airflow or air humidity, influence turret structure
title_fullStr The construction of ventilation turrets in Atta vollenweideri leaf-cutting ants: Carbon dioxide levels in the nest tunnels, but not airflow or air humidity, influence turret structure
title_full_unstemmed The construction of ventilation turrets in Atta vollenweideri leaf-cutting ants: Carbon dioxide levels in the nest tunnels, but not airflow or air humidity, influence turret structure
title_short The construction of ventilation turrets in Atta vollenweideri leaf-cutting ants: Carbon dioxide levels in the nest tunnels, but not airflow or air humidity, influence turret structure
title_sort construction of ventilation turrets in atta vollenweideri leaf-cutting ants: carbon dioxide levels in the nest tunnels, but not airflow or air humidity, influence turret structure
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5690471/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29145459
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0188162
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