IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/beheco/v23y2012i5p1022-1029..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Nest site and weather affect the personality of harvester ant colonies

Author

Listed:
  • Noa Pinter-Wollman
  • Deborah M. Gordon
  • Susan Holmes

Abstract

Environmental conditions and physical constraints both influence an animal's behavior. We investigate whether behavioral variation among colonies of the black harvester ant, Messor andrei, remains consistent across foraging and disturbance situations and ask whether consistent colony behavior is affected by nest site and weather. We examined variation among colonies in responsiveness to food baits and to disturbance, measured as a change in numbers of active ants, and in the speed with which colonies retrieved food and removed debris. Colonies differed consistently, across foraging and disturbance situations, in both responsiveness and speed. Increased activity in response to food was associated with a smaller decrease in response to alarm. Speed of retrieving food was correlated with speed of removing debris. In all colonies, speed was greater in dry conditions, reducing the amount of time ants spent outside the nest. While a colony occupied a certain nest site, its responsiveness was consistent in both foraging and disturbance situations, suggesting that nest structure influences colony personality.

Suggested Citation

  • Noa Pinter-Wollman & Deborah M. Gordon & Susan Holmes, 2012. "Nest site and weather affect the personality of harvester ant colonies," Behavioral Ecology, International Society for Behavioral Ecology, vol. 23(5), pages 1022-1029.
  • Handle: RePEc:oup:beheco:v:23:y:2012:i:5:p:1022-1029.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/beheco/ars066
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael J. Greene & Deborah M. Gordon, 2007. "Interaction rate informs harvester ant task decisions," Behavioral Ecology, International Society for Behavioral Ecology, vol. 18(2), pages 451-455.
    2. Deborah M. Gordon & Susan Holmes & Serban Nacu, 2008. "The short-term regulation of foraging in harvester ants," Behavioral Ecology, International Society for Behavioral Ecology, vol. 19(1), pages 217-222.
    3. Deborah M. Gordon & Adam Guetz & Michael J. Greene & Susan Holmes, 2011. "Colony variation in the collective regulation of foraging by harvester ants," Behavioral Ecology, International Society for Behavioral Ecology, vol. 22(2), pages 429-435.
    4. Blaine J. Cole & Adrian A. Smith & Zachary J. Huber & Diane C. Wiernasz, 2010. "The structure of foraging activity in colonies of the harvester ant, Pogonomyrmex occidentalis," Behavioral Ecology, International Society for Behavioral Ecology, vol. 21(2), pages 337-342.
    5. Andreas P. Modlmeier & Susanne Foitzik, 2011. "Productivity increases with variation in aggression among group members in Temnothorax ants," Behavioral Ecology, International Society for Behavioral Ecology, vol. 22(5), pages 1026-1032.
    6. Deborah M. Gordon, 2011. "The fusion of behavioral ecology and ecology," Behavioral Ecology, International Society for Behavioral Ecology, vol. 22(2), pages 225-230.
    7. Katrine S. Hoset & Anne-Laure Ferchaud & Florence Dufour & Danielle Mersch & Julien Cote & Jean-François Le Galliard, 2011. "Natal dispersal correlates with behavioral traits that are not consistent across early life stages," Behavioral Ecology, International Society for Behavioral Ecology, vol. 22(1), pages 176-183.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Shelby J. Sturgis & Deborah M. Gordon, 2013. "Aggression is task dependent in the red harvester ant (Pogonomyrmex barbatus)," Behavioral Ecology, International Society for Behavioral Ecology, vol. 24(2), pages 532-539.
    2. Bhatia, Ankita & Chandani, Arti & Chhateja, Jagriti, 2020. "Robo advisory and its potential in addressing the behavioral biases of investors — A qualitative study in Indian context," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(C).
    3. Vicente García-Navas & Esperanza S. Ferrer & Javier Bueno-Enciso & Rafael Barrientos & Juan José Sanz & Joaquín Ortego, 2014. "Extrapair paternity in Mediterranean blue tits: socioecological factors and the opportunity for sexual selection," Behavioral Ecology, International Society for Behavioral Ecology, vol. 25(1), pages 228-238.
    4. Denis Réale & Mahdi Khelfaoui & Pierre-Olivier Montiglio & Yves Gingras, 2020. "Mapping the dynamics of research networks in ecology and evolution using co-citation analysis (1975–2014)," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 122(3), pages 1361-1385, March.
    5. Udi Segev & Jaime Kigel & Yael Lubin & Katja Tielbörger, 2015. "Ant Abundance along a Productivity Gradient: Addressing Two Conflicting Hypotheses," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(7), pages 1-17, July.
    6. Alejandro G. Farji-Brener & Mariana Tadey, 2012. "Trash to treasure: leaf-cutting ants repair nest-mound damage by recycling refuse dump materials," Behavioral Ecology, International Society for Behavioral Ecology, vol. 23(6), pages 1195-1202.
    7. Farida S. Rasiwala & Bindya Kohli, 2021. "Artificial Intelligence in FinTech: Understanding Stakeholders Perception on Innovation, Disruption, and Transformation in Finance," International Journal of Business Intelligence Research (IJBIR), IGI Global, vol. 12(1), pages 48-65, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:beheco:v:23:y:2012:i:5:p:1022-1029.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/beheco .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.