Interactions Increase Forager Availability and Activity in Harvester Ants
Interactions Increase Forager Availability and Activity in Harvester Ants
复制标题
相互作用增加了收割蚁的觅食可用性和活动
作者：
E. Pless;Jovel Queirolo;N. Pinter;Sam P. Crow;Kelsey Allen;Maya B. Mathur;D. Gordon
社会昆虫殖民地使用工人之间的互动来规范集体行为。收割机蚂蚁觅食者在巢入口处的一个腔室中相互作用，这里称为“入口室”。先前关于觅食者在红收割机中激活的研究表明，巢中的一个外向的觅食者在将巢离开巢前饲料之前会增加短暂的触角接触。在这里，我们比较了没有留下没有的巢和蚂蚁的觅食者所经历的相互作用率。我们发现，留下巢穴的入口处的蚂蚁经历的相互作用比降到更深的巢穴而没有觅食的蚂蚁多。此外，我们发现入口室中觅食者的可用性与觅食者回报率有关。觅食者回报率的提高导致蚂蚁降到更深的巢的速率增加，然后刺激更多的蚂蚁上升到入口处。因此，较高的觅食率率会导致入口室中更多可用的癌症。相互作用的最高密度发生在巢入口附近以及从入口室到更深巢的隧道的入口。与返回觅食者的局部相互作用可以调节等待觅食者的激活和可激活的觅食者的数量。
Social insect colonies use interactions among workers to regulate collective behavior. Harvester ant foragers interact in a chamber just inside the nest entrance, here called the 'entrance chamber'. Previous studies of the activation of foragers in red harvester ants show that an outgoing forager inside the nest experiences an increase in brief antennal contacts before it leaves the nest to forage. Here we compare the interaction rate experienced by foragers that left the nest and ants that did not. We found that ants in the entrance chamber that leave the nest to forage experienced more interactions than ants that descend to the deeper nest without foraging. Additionally, we found that the availability of foragers in the entrance chamber is associated with the rate of forager return. An increase in the rate of forager return leads to an increase in the rate at which ants descend to the deeper nest, which then stimulates more ants to ascend into the entrance chamber. Thus a higher rate of forager return leads to more available foragers in the entrance chamber. The highest density of interactions occurs near the nest entrance and the entrances of the tunnels from the entrance chamber to the deeper nest. Local interactions with returning foragers regulate both the activation of waiting foragers and the number of foragers available to be activated.