Ant nests’ relatively stable and long-lasting microhabitats present ideal living conditions for many uni- multicellular organisms, whose relationships range from mutualistic to parasitic. Messor harvester ants inhabit arid semi-arid open areas where their colonies consist of large numbers individuals. Due the high number other organisms associated with ants, nests can be defined as islands uniq...

Collective behaviors in social insect societies often emerge from simple local rules. However, little is known about how these behaviors are dynamically regulated in response to environmental changes. Here, we use a compartmental modeling approach to identify factors that allow harvester ant colonies to regulate collective foraging activity in response to their environment. We propose a set of ...

Several North American species of Pogonomyrmex harvester ants exhibit group foraging, whereas South American species are exclusively solitary foragers. The composition of the secretions of the poison and Dufour glands in the South American species, Pogonomyrmex vermiculatus, were analyzed, and the secretions and their components were tested as trail pheromones in laboratory bioassays. The major...

Caste differentiation and division of labor are the hallmarks of social insect colonies [1, 2]. The current dogma for female caste differentiation is that female eggs are totipotent, with morphological and physiological differences between queens and workers stemming from a developmental switch during the larval stage controlled by nutritional and other environmental factors (e.g., [3-8]). In t...

Split sex ratios, when some colonies produce only male and others only female reproductives, is a common feature of social insects, especially ants. The most widely accepted explanation for split sex ratios was proposed by Boomsma and Grafen, and is driven by conflicts of interest among colonies that vary in relatedness. The predictions of the Boomsma-Grafen model have been confirmed in many ca...

Abstract Many ant species are known to exhibit foraging tool use, during which ants place various debris items (e.g., pieces of soil, leaves, pine needles, etc.) into liquid food, and then they carry the food-soaked tools back nest. In present study, we compared tool-using behavior in captive colonies two closely related myrmicine with different feeding preferences: Aphaenogaster subterranea , ...