Division of labor in insect societies relies on simple behavioral rules, whereby individual colony members respond to dynamic signals indicating the need for certain tasks to be performed. This in turn gives rise to colony-level phenotypes. However, empirical studies quantifying colony-level signal-response dynamics are lacking. Here, we make use of the unusual biology and experimental amenability of the queenless clonal raider ant Cerapachys biroi to jointly quantify the behavioral and physiological responses of workers to a social signal emitted by larvae. Using automated behavioral quantification and oocyte size measurements in colonies of different sizes and with different worker-to-larvae ratios, we show that the workers in a colony respond to larvae by increasing foraging activity and inhibiting ovarian activation in a progressive manner and that these responses are stronger in smaller colonies. This work adds to our knowledge of the processes that link plastic individual behavioral/physiological responses to colony-level phenotypes in social insect colonies.

中文翻译：

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蚂蚁幼虫以剂量依赖性方式调节工蚁觅食行为和卵巢活动


昆虫社会的劳动分工依赖于简单的行为规则，即个体群体成员对表明需要执行某些任务的动态信号做出反应。这反过来又产生了菌落水平的表型。然而，缺乏量化菌落水平信号响应动态的实证研究。在这里，我们利用无王克隆掠食蚁 Cerapachys biroi 的不寻常生物学特性和实验适应性，共同量化工蚁对幼虫发出的社交信号的行为和生理反应。通过对不同大小和不同工蚁与幼虫比例的群体进行自动行为量化和卵母细胞大小测量，我们发现群体中的工蚁通过逐渐增加觅食活动和抑制卵巢激活来对幼虫做出反应，并且这些反应在较小的群体中更强。这项工作增加了我们对将可塑性个体行为/生理反应与社会性昆虫群体中群体水平表型联系起来的过程的了解。