Group phenotypic composition drives task performances in ants.
Biol Lett
; 20(1): 20230463, 2024 01.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-38195057
ABSTRACT
Differences in individual behaviour within a group can give rise to functional dissimilarities between groups, particularly in social animals. However, how individual behavioural phenotypes translate into the group phenotype remains unclear. Here, we investigate whether individual behavioural type affects group performance in a eusocial species, the ant Aphaenogaster senilis. We measured individual behavioural traits and created groups of workers with similar behavioural type, either high-exploratory or low-exploratory workers. We tested these groups in four different, ecologically relevant, tasks reaction to an intruder, prey retrieval from a maze, nest relocation and tool use. We show that, compared to groups of low-exploratory workers, groups of high-exploratory workers were more aggressive towards intruders, more efficient in collecting prey, faster in nest relocation and more likely to perform tool use. Our results demonstrate a strong link between individual and collective behaviour in ants. This supports the 'behavioural type hypothesis' for group dynamics, which suggests that an individual's behaviour in a social environment reflects its own behavioural type. The average behavioural phenotype of a group can therefore be predicted from the behavioural types of individual group members.
Palabras clave
Texto completo:
1
Colección:
01-internacional
Base de datos:
MEDLINE
Asunto principal:
Hormigas
/
Análisis y Desempeño de Tareas
Límite:
Animals
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Biol Lett
Asunto de la revista:
BIOLOGIA
Año:
2024
Tipo del documento:
Article
País de afiliación:
Francia
Pais de publicación:
Reino Unido