Several worker subcastes may occur in ant colonies, including physiological, morphological, and temporal subcastes. Leaf-cutting ants present intricate division of labor among worker subcastes during brood care, fungus garden maintenance, substrate foraging and processing. For colony survival, the fungus garden must be healthy, and tasks efficiently shared among worker subcastes. Therefore, worker behavior is key for colony maintenance in fungus-farming ants. Here we provide a qualitative and quantitative account of intracolonial behavior in Acromyrmex subterraneus, a common leaf-cutter in Brazilian Cerrado savanna. Quantitative ethograms showed that performance of major behavioral categories (e.g., “Brood and Queen Care,” “Foraging,” “Fungus Care”) and the composition of behavioral repertoires are important parameters distinguishing labor among A. subterraneus worker subcastes. Media and major subcastes are behaviorally more similar to one another than to minors. Minors regularly executed brood- and fungus-related tasks, whereas media and majors executed mostly foraging-related tasks. Grooming was frequent in all subcastes. Overall, the behavioral patterns reported in A. subterraneus are similar to those reported for other leaf-cutters. The tasks executed by different subcastes of A. subterraneus closely resemble the division of labor observed in Atta colonies, suggesting that alongside the use of fresh leaves as culturing substrates, a highly conserved set of worker behaviors persist since the origin of the leaf-cutting lineage. Our work highlights the importance of detailed analyses of the composition of behavioral repertoires in polymorphic fungus-farming ants to better understand their social organization, and the mechanisms mediating division of labor among worker subcastes in the Attina.

中文翻译：

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切叶蚁 Acromyrmex subterraneus (Formicidae: Myrmicinae) 的社会组织和亚种姓专业化

蚁群中可能出现几种工人亚种姓，包括生理、形态和时间亚种姓。在育雏、真菌花园维护、基质觅食和加工过程中，切叶蚁在工人亚种姓之间呈现出错综复杂的分工。为了菌落的生存，真菌园必须是健康的，并且在工人亚种姓之间有效地分担任务。因此，工人行为是真菌养殖蚂蚁群体维持的关键。在这里，我们提供了 Acromyrmex subterraneus（巴西塞拉多稀树草原中的一种常见切叶机）的菌落内行为的定性和定量说明。定量伦理图表明，主要行为类别（例如，“育雏和蜂后护理”、“觅食”、“真菌护理”）的表现和行为库的组成是区分 A. 地下工人亚种姓。媒体和主要亚种姓在行为上彼此更相似，而不是与未成年人相似。未成年人定期执行与育雏和真菌相关的任务，而媒体和专业则主要执行与觅食相关的任务。在所有亚种姓中都经常梳理毛发。总体而言，A. subterraneus 中报告的行为模式与其他切叶机报告的行为模式相似。A. subterraneus 的不同亚种姓执行的任务与 Atta 殖民地中观察到的分工非常相似，这表明除了使用新鲜叶子作为培养基质外，自切叶谱系的起源以来，一组高度保守的工人行为一直存在.