Carbohydrate regulation in relation to colony growth in ants
Carbohydrate regulation in relation to colony growth in ants
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DOI：
10.1242/jeb.017509
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发表时间：
2008-07-15
影响因子：
2.8
通讯作者：
Simpson, S. J.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Dussutour, A.;Simpson, S. J.
蚂蚁和所有群居昆虫都面临着营养挑战：进入蚁群的食物只由一小部分工蚁带来，但由蚁群的所有成员分享。在这项研究中，我们研究了蚂蚁如何在集体和个体水平上维持碳水化合物供应，以响应可用蔗糖溶液浓度、群体人口统计和幼虫生长的变化。我们在较长的时间内控制了蚂蚁群体可用的糖液(稀溶液、中等溶液和浓缩液)的浓度，并测量了蚂蚁群体通过补偿喂养维持糖供应的能力。首先，我们证明了蚂蚁在集体和个体水平上调节碳水化合物的摄入。最初，蚂蚁对较浓的糖溶液的反应比稀释糖液时消耗最多，招募最快，但随着时间的推移，这种模式发生了逆转，即蚂蚁进食的数量和每只蚂蚁摄取的体积与饮食中的糖浓度呈负函数关系。其次，我们发现，随着巢中幼虫的产生，蚂蚁在调节碳水化合物摄入量方面变得更好。当实验中幼虫数量增加一倍时，蚂蚁比成年工蚁数量增加一倍时更准确地调节碳水化合物的消耗，这表明幼虫在向工蚁提供营养反馈方面发挥了重要作用。最后，我们展示了蚂蚁通过允许它们在不同浓度的糖溶液中进行选择来捍卫碳水化合物的“摄取目标”。
Ants and all social insects are faced with a nutritional challenge: the food entering the colony is brought by only a small number of its workers but is shared among all members of the colony. In this study, we investigated how ants maintain carbohydrates supply at both a collective and an individual level in response to changes in the concentration of available sucrose solution, colony demography and larval growth. We manipulated the concentration of sugar solutions available to ant colonies ( dilute, medium and concentrated solutions) over extended periods and measured the capacity of colonies to maintain sugar supply through compensatory feeding. First, we demonstrated that ants regulated carbohydrate intake at a collective and individual level. Initially, ants consumed most and recruited fastest in response to more concentrated than to dilute sugar solutions, but over time this pattern reversed, such that the number of ants that fed and the volume ingested by each ant was a negative function of sugar concentration in the diet. Second, we found that ants became better at regulating their carbohydrate intake with the production of larvae in the nest. When the number of larvae was experimentally doubled, the ants regulated their consumption of carbohydrates more accurately than when the number of adult workers was doubled, suggesting that larvae play an important role in providing nutritional feedback to workers. Finally, we showed that ants defended a carbohydrate 'intake target' by allowing them to select among sugar solutions of different concentration.