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

黛博拉·M戈登建议0718631红色收获蚁群觅食活动与繁殖成功的关系行为生态学的一个基本问题是自然选择如何塑造行为。 为了回答这个问题，我们需要知道以某种方式行为的个体是否更有可能繁殖。 该项目继续对亚利桑那州东南部约350个红色收获蚁群进行了为期25年的研究。 这是对任何社会性昆虫种群最长期的行为和人口统计学研究。 先前的研究表明，蜂群会竞争食物，因此觅食行为对蜂群的生存和繁殖很重要。 这项研究将检验更有效地调节觅食的蜂群是否在繁殖方面更成功。 在社会性昆虫中，群体是繁殖个体，并且众所周知，很难衡量群体的繁殖成功率。 需要遗传工具来识别亲子对。 这只有在种群中才是可行的，在种群中，个体菌落的大样本可以在整个生命周期中进行跟踪。 拟议的工作将利用独特的长期数据和遗传标记。 这将是遗传方法的创新应用，以开发一种新的衡量社会昆虫群体繁殖成功的方法。 群居昆虫的行为引起了一些有趣的问题，因为群体的运作没有中央控制。 个体工蚁利用本地信息做出决策，这些决策在总体上产生了殖民地的协调行为。 以前的工作表明，觅食行为的调节取决于工蜂之间的相互作用网络。结合觅食活动的行为措施与已知的，个别殖民地的繁殖成功的数据，该项目将询问是否更好的觅食导致更高的繁殖成功。 这将使人们有可能发现自然选择目前是如何塑造蚁群的组织的。这项工作将为本科生和研究生，包括妇女和少数民族，提供广泛的实验室和实地研究机会。调查结果将纳入PI的外联活动，包括为公众写作和演讲，以及在当地学校开展志愿工作。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，这些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.