The Relation of Foraging Activity and Reproductive Success in Red Harvester Ant Colonies

行为生态学中的一个基本问题是自然选择是如何塑造行为的。要回答这个问题，我们需要知道行为方式特定的个体是否更有可能繁衍后代。该项目继续对亚利桑那州东南部约350个红色收割机蚂蚁群体进行了长达25年的研究。这是所有群居昆虫种群中持续时间最长的行为和人口统计学研究。以往的工作表明，蜂群之间存在食物竞争，因此觅食行为对蜂群的生存和繁殖应该是重要的。这项研究将检验更有效地控制觅食的蜂群是否在繁殖方面更成功。在群居昆虫中，群体是繁殖的个体，众所周知，很难衡量群体的繁殖成功。需要基因工具来识别双亲-后代对。这只有在一个种群中才是可行的，在这个种群中，单个殖民地的大样本可以在它们的整个生命周期中被跟踪。这项拟议的工作将利用独特的长期数据和遗传标记。这将是对遗传方法的创新应用，以开发一种衡量社会昆虫群体繁殖成功的新措施。昆虫的群居行为引发了一些耐人寻味的问题，因为蜂群的活动没有中央控制。个体工蚁利用当地的信息做出决策，这些决策在总体上产生了群体的协调行为。以前的工作表明，觅食行为的调节依赖于工蚁之间的互动网络。这个项目将觅食活动的行为测量与已知个体群体繁殖成功的数据结合起来，询问更好的觅食是否会带来更高的繁殖成功率。这将使人们有可能发现目前自然选择是如何塑造蚂蚁群体的组织的。这项工作将为本科生和研究生提供广泛的实验室和实地研究机会，包括女性和少数族裔。研究结果将被纳入派S推广活动，包括为公众写作和演讲，以及在当地学校的志愿者工作。这个长期项目现在提供了关于任何社会昆虫种群的最实质性的人口统计数据，将提供给有兴趣使用它的人。

Deborah M. GordonProposal 0718631The relation of foraging activity and reproductive success in red harvester ant coloniesA fundamental question in behavioral ecology is how natural selection is shaping behavior. To answer this we need to know whether individuals that behave in a certain way are more likely to reproduce. The project continues a 25-year study of a population of about 350 red harvester ant colonies in southeastern Arizona. This is the longest-term behavioral and demographic study of any social insect population. Previous work shows that colonies compete for food, so foraging behavior should be important for colony survival and reproduction. The study will examine whether colonies that regulate foraging more effectively are more successful in reproducing. In social insects, colonies are the reproductive individuals, and it is notoriously difficult to measure the reproductive success of colonies. Genetic tools are needed to identify parent-offspring pairs. This is feasible only in a population in which a large sample of individual colonies can be followed throughout their life cycles. The proposed work will draw on unique long-term data and genetic markers. This will be an innovative application of genetic methods to develop a new measure of the reproductive success of social insect colonies. Social insect behavior raises intriguing questions because colonies operate without central control. Individual workers make decisions, using local information, that in the aggregate produce the coordinated behavior of the colony. Previous work shows that the regulation of foraging behavior depends on a network of interactions between workers. Combining behavioral measures of foraging activity with data on the reproductive success of known, individual colonies, this project will ask whether better foraging leads to higher reproductive success. This will make it possible to discover how natural selection is currently shaping the organization of ant colonies.The work will provide extensive laboratory and field research opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students, including women and minorities. The results will be incorporated into the PI''s outreach activities, including writing and speaking for the general public, and volunteer work in local schools. This long-term project now provides the most substantial demographic data on any social insect population, which will be available to people interested in using it.