scholarly journals Mating Season and Colony Foundation of the Seed-Harvester Ant, Veromessor Pergandei

1985 ◽  
Vol 92 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory B. Pollock ◽  
Steven W. Rissing
Keyword(s):  
Colony Foundation ◽  
Mating Season ◽  
Harvester Ant ◽  
Veromessor Pergandei

scholarly journals Pheromone cue triggers switch between vectors in the desert harvest ant, Veromessor pergandei

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cody A Freas ◽  
Marcia L Spetch ◽  
Jenna Congdon
Keyword(s):  
Path Integration ◽  
Trail Pheromone ◽  
Column Vector ◽  
Vector System ◽  
Distance Estimate ◽  
Harvester Ant ◽  
Veromessor Pergandei ◽  
Spatial Locations ◽  
Potential Use

The desert harvester ant (Veromessor pergandei) employs a mixture of social and individual navigational strategies at separate stages of their foraging trip. Individuals leave the nest along a pheromone-based column, travelling 3-40m before spreading out to forage individually in a fan. Foragers use path integration while in this fan, accumulating a direction and distance estimate (vector) to return to the end of the column (column head), yet foragers’ potential use of path integration in the pheromone-based column is less understood. Here we show foragers rely on path integration both in the foraging fan as well as while in the column to return to the nest, using separate vectors depending on their current foraging stage in the fan or column. Returning foragers displaced while in the fan oriented and travelled to the column head location while those displaced after reaching the column travel in the nest direction, signifying the maintenance of a two-vector system with separate fan and column vectors directing a forager to two separate spatial locations. Interestingly, the trail pheromone and not the surrounding terrestrial cues mediate use of these distinct vectors, as fan foragers briefly exposed to the pheromone cues of the column in isolation altered their paths to a combination of the fan and column vectors. The pheromone cue acts as a contextual cue triggering both the retrieval of the column vector memory and its integration with the forager’s current fan vector.

scholarly journals The non-additive effects of body size on nest architecture in a polymorphic ant

2018 ◽  
Vol 373 (1753) ◽  
pp. 20170235 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina L. Kwapich ◽  
Gabriele Valentini ◽  
Bert Hölldobler
Keyword(s):  
Body Size ◽  
Synergistic Effects ◽  
Mating Frequency ◽  
Nest Architecture ◽  
Harvester Ant ◽  
Insect Societies ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approaches ◽  
Size Groups ◽  
Veromessor Pergandei ◽  
Colony Level

Like traditional organisms, eusocial insect societies express traits that are the target of natural selection. Variation at the colony level emerges from the combined attributes of thousands of workers and may yield characteristics not predicted from individual phenotypes. By manipulating the ratios of worker types, the basis of complex, colony-level traits can be reduced to the additive and non-additive interactions of their component parts. In this study, we investigated the independent and synergistic effects of body size on nest architecture in a seasonally polymorphic harvester ant, Veromessor pergandei . Using network analysis, we compared wax casts of nests, and found that mixed-size groups built longer nests, excavated more sand and produced greater architectural complexity than single-sized worker groups. The nests built by polymorphic groups were not only larger in absolute terms, but larger than expected based on the combined contributions of both size classes in isolation. In effect, the interactions of different worker types yielded a colony-level trait that was not predicted from the sum of its parts. In nature, V. pergandei colonies with fewer fathers produce smaller workers each summer, and produce more workers annually. Because body size is linked to multiple colony-level traits, our findings demonstrate how selection acting on one characteristic, like mating frequency, could also shape unrelated characteristics, like nest architecture. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Interdisciplinary approaches for uncovering the impacts of architecture on collective behaviour'.

scholarly journals Questioning paradigms: caste-specific ventilation in harvester ants, Messor pergandei and M. julianus (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

1995 ◽  
Vol 198 (2) ◽  
pp. 521-530 ◽  
Author(s):  
J Lighton ◽  
D Berrigan
Keyword(s):  
Co2 Emission ◽  
Emission Rate ◽  
Emission Rates ◽  
Colony Foundation ◽  
Harvester Ants ◽  
Developmental Constraints ◽  
Ant Colonies ◽  
Physiological Constraints ◽  
Harvester Ant ◽  
Single Temperature

Do developmental constraints in ant colonies limit gas exchange strategies to those displayed by female alates (presumptive queens)? In the xeric harvester ant genus Messor, we found that M. pergandei and M. julianus female alates ventilated highly discontinuously, as predicted, but M. julianus workers ventilated less discontinuously and M. pergandei workers (which occur in more xeric habitats) ventilated continuously. We present the salient characteristics of the discontinuous ventilation cycles of the species and the manner in which they are modulated by CO2 emission rates at a single temperature (24 °C). We demonstrate that, in M. julianus workers, open-spiracle phase CO2 emission rate only slightly exceeds overall CO2 emission rate, making discontinuous ventilation marginal, a state extrapolated in M. pergandei to continuous ventilation. However, workers are plainly capable of far greater rates of CO2 emission than when inactive at 24 °C, so the lack of discontinuous ventilation in M. pergandei under normoxic conditions is not likely to be imposed by physiological constraints and may, in fact, be a response to its xeric environment. We hypothesize ­ aside from phylogenetic effects ­ that discontinuous ventilation occurs primarily in insects that may experience hypoxic and hypercapnic conditions, such as ant queens during claustral colony foundation and perhaps workers within the nest environment; that discontinuous ventilation is not necessarily essential to reduce respiratory water loss; and that it will not necessarily occur in castes or species routinely exposed to xeric but normoxic conditions.

scholarly journals Sexual Interference Behaviors in Male Adult and Subadult Tibetan Macaques (Macaca thibetana)

Animals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 663
Author(s):  
Kui-Hai Pang ◽  
Amanda K. Rowe ◽  
Lori K. Sheeran ◽  
Dong-Po Xia ◽  
Lixing Sun ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Reproductive Success ◽  
Nonhuman Primate ◽  
Sampling Method ◽  
Mating Season ◽  
Macaca Thibetana ◽  
Subadult Male ◽  
Sexual Competition ◽  
Male Adult ◽  
Sexual Interference ◽  
The Individual

Male nonhuman primate sexual interference, which includes copulation interruption and copulation harassment, has been related to reproductive success, but its significance has been challenging to test. Copulation interruption results in the termination of a copulation before ejaculation, whereas copulation harassment does not. We conducted this study using the all-occurrence behavior sampling method on sexual interference behaviors of seven adult and four subadult male Tibetan macaques (Macaca thibetana) in mating and non-mating seasons at Mt. Huangshan, China, from August 2016 to May 2017. Our results showed that males’ individual proportion of copulation interruption and harassment was higher during the mating season than during the non-mating season. In addition, dominant males more often performed interruption, whereas subordinate males more often performed harassment. We found no difference in the individual proportion of copulation interruption or harassment between adult and subadult males. Adult and subadult males both directed copulation interruption and harassment more often toward the mating male than toward the mating female. Lastly, the post-ejaculation phase of copulation was shorter when copulation harassment occurred than when it did not. Our results suggest that sexual interference may be an important mating tactic that adult and subadult males use in male–male sexual competition.

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