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Vertical organization of the division of labor within nests of the Florida harvester ant, Pogonomyrmex badius

In the Florida harvester ant, Pogonomyrmex badius, foragers occur only in the top 15 cm of the nest, whereas brood and brood-care workers reside mostly in the deepest regions, yet the food and seeds foragers collect must be transported downward 30 to 80 cm to seed chambers and up to 2 m to brood cha...

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Autores principales: Tschinkel, Walter R., Hanley, Nicholas
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5705139/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29182686
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0188630
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author Tschinkel, Walter R.
Hanley, Nicholas
author_facet Tschinkel, Walter R.
Hanley, Nicholas
author_sort Tschinkel, Walter R.
collection PubMed
description In the Florida harvester ant, Pogonomyrmex badius, foragers occur only in the top 15 cm of the nest, whereas brood and brood-care workers reside mostly in the deepest regions, yet the food and seeds foragers collect must be transported downward 30 to 80 cm to seed chambers and up to 2 m to brood chambers. Using mark-recapture techniques with fluorescent printer's ink, we identified a class of workers that ranges widely within the vertical structure of the nest, rapidly moving materials dropped by foragers in the upper regions downward, and excavated soil from deeper upward. Within the nest, only 5% of foragers were recovered below 20 cm depth, but about 30% of transfer workers and 82% of unmarked workers were found there. Below 70 cm depth, 90% of workers were unmarked, and were probably involved mostly in brood care. During the summer, the transfer workers comprise about a quarter of the nest population, while foragers make up about 40%. Workers marked as transfer workers later appear as foragers, while those marked as foragers die and disappear from the foraging population, suggesting that transfer workers are younger, and age into foraging. The importance of these findings for laboratory studies of division of labor are discussed. The efficient allocation of labor is a key component of superorganismal fitness.
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spelling pubmed-57051392017-12-08 Vertical organization of the division of labor within nests of the Florida harvester ant, Pogonomyrmex badius Tschinkel, Walter R. Hanley, Nicholas PLoS One Research Article In the Florida harvester ant, Pogonomyrmex badius, foragers occur only in the top 15 cm of the nest, whereas brood and brood-care workers reside mostly in the deepest regions, yet the food and seeds foragers collect must be transported downward 30 to 80 cm to seed chambers and up to 2 m to brood chambers. Using mark-recapture techniques with fluorescent printer's ink, we identified a class of workers that ranges widely within the vertical structure of the nest, rapidly moving materials dropped by foragers in the upper regions downward, and excavated soil from deeper upward. Within the nest, only 5% of foragers were recovered below 20 cm depth, but about 30% of transfer workers and 82% of unmarked workers were found there. Below 70 cm depth, 90% of workers were unmarked, and were probably involved mostly in brood care. During the summer, the transfer workers comprise about a quarter of the nest population, while foragers make up about 40%. Workers marked as transfer workers later appear as foragers, while those marked as foragers die and disappear from the foraging population, suggesting that transfer workers are younger, and age into foraging. The importance of these findings for laboratory studies of division of labor are discussed. The efficient allocation of labor is a key component of superorganismal fitness. Public Library of Science 2017-11-28 /pmc/articles/PMC5705139/ /pubmed/29182686 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0188630 Text en © 2017 Tschinkel, Hanley 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
Tschinkel, Walter R.
Hanley, Nicholas
Vertical organization of the division of labor within nests of the Florida harvester ant, Pogonomyrmex badius
title Vertical organization of the division of labor within nests of the Florida harvester ant, Pogonomyrmex badius
title_full Vertical organization of the division of labor within nests of the Florida harvester ant, Pogonomyrmex badius
title_fullStr Vertical organization of the division of labor within nests of the Florida harvester ant, Pogonomyrmex badius
title_full_unstemmed Vertical organization of the division of labor within nests of the Florida harvester ant, Pogonomyrmex badius
title_short Vertical organization of the division of labor within nests of the Florida harvester ant, Pogonomyrmex badius
title_sort vertical organization of the division of labor within nests of the florida harvester ant, pogonomyrmex badius
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5705139/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29182686
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0188630
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