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

行为生态学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，我们需要知道以某种方式行事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个红色收获蚁种群进行了为期25年的研究。这是对任何群居昆虫种群进行的最长期的行为和人口研究。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应该很重要。这项研究将检验是否更有效地调节觅食的群体在繁殖方面更成功。在群居昆虫中，群体是繁殖的个体，众所周知，衡量群体的繁殖成功率是非常困难的。需要遗传工具来识别亲子对。这是可行的，只有在一个种群中，一个大样本的个体殖民地可以在其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。这将是遗传方法的创新应用，以开发一种新的衡量社会性昆虫群体繁殖成功的方法。群居昆虫的行为引发了一些有趣的问题，因为群体在没有中央控制的情况下运作。个体工蚁根据本地信息做出决定，最终产生群体的协调行为。先前的研究表明，觅食行为的调节取决于工蚁之间的互动网络。将觅食活动的行为测量与已知个体群体的繁殖成功率数据相结合，该项目将探讨更好的觅食是否会导致更高的繁殖成功率。这将使我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。结果将被纳入PI的推广活动，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任何群居昆虫种群的最丰富的人口统计数据，这些数据将供有兴趣使用它的人使用。

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.