Aggression in social animals: Effects of group size resource holding potential and costs of fighting on the outcome of battles

同一物种的动物经常会因食物、住所、领土或配偶等基本资源的所有权而相互冲突，这些资源对确保它们的生存和繁殖机会至关重要。这些冲突可能发生在成对的个体动物之间并导致“战斗”，或者它们可能发生在个体动物群体之间并导致“战斗”。这很可能发生在群居动物群体，如人类、猿或群居昆虫发生冲突时，通常是在领土所有权问题上。许多研究调查了战斗的解决方案，但对决定战斗胜利的因素知之甚少。在格斗比赛中，个人的格斗能力是决定胜负的主要因素。在战斗中，每个群体中的个体数量对哪一个群体获胜有很大的影响，但是组成每个群体的个体的战斗能力差异的影响还没有得到很好的理解。此外，个体在战斗中相互交战的方式可能会影响群体规模和战斗能力对获胜机会的贡献。本研究的目的是解决这些问题，通过调查战斗的社会昆虫，红蚂蚁。这些蚂蚁在英国南部很常见，但在整个欧洲范围内，它们的地位不太安全。为了研究战斗能力和战斗行为如何影响群体大小的差异对战斗结果的影响，我们将使用在研究成对个体动物之间的战斗过程中开发的方法。这将包括测量敌对团体战斗人员的体型、武器大小和精力状况。通过研究这种蚂蚁，我们的目标是得出普遍相关的结论，这将提高我们对动物攻击行为的理解，特别是群体之间的攻击。选择的物种也被世界自然保护联盟归类为“脆弱”，更多地了解其生物学和行为可能有助于保护这种原产于英国的物种。

Animals of the same species often come into conflict with one another over ownership of essential resources, such as food, shelter, territory or mates, which are essential for ensuring their survival and chance to reproduce. These conflicts may occur between pairs of individual animals and result in a 'fight', or they may occur between groups of individual animals and result in a 'battle'. This is likely to happen when groups of social animals, such as humans, apes or social insects come into conflict, usually over the ownership of territory. Many studies have investigated the resolution of fights but far less is known about the factors that determine victory in battles. In fights an individual's fighting ability is the main factor that determines whether it will win. In battles the number of individuals in each group should have a strong effect on which group wins, but the effect of differences in the fighting ability of the individuals that make up each group is not well understood. Also, the way in which individuals engage one another within the battle might influence the contribution that group size and fighting ability make to the chance of winning. The aim of this study is to address these questions by investigating battles in a social insect, the red wood ant Formica rufa. These ants are common in the southern UK but their status is less secure across the whole of their European range. To investigate the ways that fighting ability and fighting behaviour influence how strongly differences in group size should affect the outcome of battles, we will use approaches that have been developed during studies of fights between pairs of individual animals. These will include measuring body size, weapon size and the energy status of combatants in opposing groups. By studying this species of ant we aim to draw conclusions of general relevance that will improve our understanding of aggressive behaviour in animals in general and particularly of aggression between groups. The species chose is also classed as 'vulnerable' by the IUCN and knowing more about its biology and behaviour may aid in the conservation of this species that is native to the UK.