Individual experience alone can generate lasting division of labor in ants
Individual experience alone can generate lasting division of labor in ants
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DOI：
10.1016/j.cub.2007.06.047
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发表时间：
2007-08-07
期刊：
影响因子：
9.2
通讯作者：
Jaisson, Pierre
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Ravary, Fabien;Lecoutey, Emmanuel;Jaisson, Pierre
劳动分工，即从事不同任务的工作者的专业化，在很大程度上促进了群居昆虫的生态成功[1,2]。工人之间的形态、基因型和年龄差异，以及他们的社会互动，都塑造了劳动分工[1-12]。此外，有研究认为个体经验会影响工蚁执行任务的决定[13-18]，但其对昆虫社会组织的潜在影响尚未得到证实[19,20]。这里我们表明，在其他条件相同的情况下，蚂蚁工人根据他们以前的经验从事不同的职能。当个体在每次觅食尝试中被实验引导去发现猎物时，它们表现出高度的食物探索倾向。相反，在同样的情况下，总是失败的个体的觅食活动逐渐减少。一个月后，先前找到猎物的工蜂继续寻找食物，而那些总是失败的工蜂则专门照顾后代。由此看来，个体经验可以强烈地引导蚂蚁的行为个体发生，从而产生持久的劳动分工。这种基于个体学习过程的自组织任务归因系统特别稳健，可能在群体效率中发挥重要作用。
Division of labor, the specialization of workers on different tasks, largely contributes to the ecological success of social insects [1, 2]. Morphological, genotypic, and age variations among workers, as well as their social interactions, all shape division of labor [1-12]. In addition, individual experience has been suggested to influence workers in their decision to execute a task [13-18], but its potential impact on the organization of insect societies has yet to be demonstrated [19, 20]. Here we show that, all else being equal, ant workers engaged in distinct functions in accordance with their previous experience. When individuals were experimentally led to discover prey at each of their foraging attempts, they showed a high propensity for food exploration. Conversely, foraging activity progressively decreased for individuals who always failed in the same situation. One month later, workers that previously found prey kept on exploring for food, whereas those who always failed specialized in brood care. It thus appears that individual experience can strongly channel the behavioral ontogeny of ants to generate a lasting division of labor. This self-organized task-attribution system, based on an individual learning process, is particularly robust and might play an important role in colony efficiency.