Do ants need to be old and experienced to teach?
Do ants need to be old and experienced to teach?
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DOI：
10.1242/jeb.064618
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发表时间：
2012-04-01
影响因子：
2.8
通讯作者：
Franks, Nigel R.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Franklin, Elizabeth L.;Robinson, Elva J. H.;Franks, Nigel R.
学习在无脊椎动物中很普遍。然而，社会性昆虫是否通过经验提高了它们的招聘技能，这才刚刚开始被调查。串联奔跑是一种一对一的招募形式，被某些种类的蚂蚁所使用。这是一个了不起的交流系统，符合广泛接受的非人类动物教学标准。在这里，我们实验确定在何种程度上参与，并有效执行，串联运行取决于年龄或经验的工蚁。为了调查这些问题，我们构建了蚁Temnothorax albipennis殖民地的不同组成的经验不足，经验丰富的工人从不同的年龄组，然后检查蚂蚁参与串联运行时，他们移民。我们的研究结果表明，积极参与招聘串联运行的能力是存在于所有工人年龄组，但参与的倾向与经验而不是年龄本身。有经验的个体更有可能参与串联运行，无论是作为领导者还是作为追随者，比年轻的没有经验的个体，年长的有经验的蚂蚁更有可能领导串联比年长的没有经验的蚂蚁。年轻的无经验的蚂蚁比年长的有经验的蚂蚁跑得更快，更迅速地分散，更不准确地定向。我们的研究表明，经验（而不是年龄本身）加上刺激阈值反应可能会相互作用，以促进劳动分工，使适当数量的工人积极参与串联运行。
Learning is widespread in invertebrates. However, whether social insects improve their recruitment skills with experience is only beginning to be investigated. Tandem running is a one-to-one form of recruitment used by certain species of ant. It is a remarkable communication system that meets widely accepted criteria for teaching in non-human animals. Here, we determined experimentally to what extent participation in, and efficient execution of, tandem running depends on either the age or the experience of worker ants. To investigate these issues, we constructed colonies of the ant Temnothorax albipennis with different compositions of inexperienced and experienced workers from different age cohorts and then examined which ants participated in tandem runs when they emigrated. Our results show that the ability to participate actively in recruitment by tandem running is present in all worker age groups but the propensity to participate varies with experience rather than age per se. Experienced individuals were more likely to engage in tandem runs, either as leaders or as followers, than young inexperienced individuals, and older experienced ants were more likely to lead tandems than older inexperienced ants. Young inexperienced ants led faster, more rapidly dispersing and less accurately orientated tandem runs than the older experienced ants. Our study suggests that experience (rather than age per se) coupled to stimulus threshold responses might interact to promote a division of labour so that a suitable number of workers actively participate in tandem runs.