The Relation of Foraging Activity and Reproductive Success in Red Harvester Ant Colonies

红收割蚁群中觅食活动与繁殖成功率的关系

• 批准号: 0718631
• 负责人: Deborah Gordon
• 金额: $ 27.02万
• 依托单位: Stanford University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2007
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2007-08-01 至 2012-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0718631&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Relation; Foraging; Activity; Reproductive; Success

Deborah M. GordonProposal 0718631The relation of foraging activity and reproductive success in red harvester ant coloniesA fundamental question in behavioral ecology is how natural selection is shaping behavior. To answer this we need to know whether individuals that behave in a certain way are more likely to reproduce. The project continues a 25-year study of a population of about 350 red harvester ant colonies in southeastern Arizona. This is the longest-term behavioral and demographic study of any social insect population. Previous work shows that colonies compete for food, so foraging behavior should be important for colony survival and reproduction. The study will examine whether colonies that regulate foraging more effectively are more successful in reproducing. In social insects, colonies are the reproductive individuals, and it is notoriously difficult to measure the reproductive success of colonies. Genetic tools are needed to identify parent-offspring pairs. This is feasible only in a population in which a large sample of individual colonies can be followed throughout their life cycles. The proposed work will draw on unique long-term data and genetic markers. This will be an innovative application of genetic methods to develop a new measure of the reproductive success of social insect colonies. Social insect behavior raises intriguing questions because colonies operate without central control. Individual workers make decisions, using local information, that in the aggregate produce the coordinated behavior of the colony. Previous work shows that the regulation of foraging behavior depends on a network of interactions between workers. Combining behavioral measures of foraging activity with data on the reproductive success of known, individual colonies, this project will ask whether better foraging leads to higher reproductive success. This will make it possible to discover how natural selection is currently shaping the organization of ant colonies.The work will provide extensive laboratory and field research opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students, including women and minorities. The results will be incorporated into the PI''s outreach activities, including writing and speaking for the general public, and volunteer work in local schools. This long-term project now provides the most substantial demographic data on any social insect population, which will be available to people interested in using it.

Deborah M. Gordonpropossos 0718631行为生态学中的觅食活动和生殖成功的关系是自然选择如何塑造行为。 要回答这个问题，我们需要知道以某种方式行为的个人是否更有可能繁殖。 该项目继续对亚利桑那州东南部的大约350个红收割蚁菌群人口进行了25年的研究。 这是对任何社会昆虫人口的最长行为和人口研究。 先前的工作表明殖民地争夺食物，因此觅食行为对于殖民地的生存和繁殖应该很重要。 该研究将检查调节觅食的菌落是否在复制方面更为成功。 在社会昆虫中，殖民地是生殖个体，众所周知，很难衡量殖民地的生殖成功。 需要遗传工具来识别父源性对。 这仅在人群中可行，在该人群中，可以在整个生命周期中遵循大量的单个菌落样本。 拟议的工作将利用独特的长期数据和遗传标记。 这将是遗传方法的创新应用，以开发一种新的社会昆虫菌落生殖成功的量度。 社会昆虫的行为引起了有趣的问题，因为殖民地在没有中央控制的情况下运作。 单个工人使用本地信息做出决定，即在总体中产生殖民地的协调行为。 先前的工作表明，对觅食行为的调节取决于工人之间的互动网络。将觅食活动的行为度量与有关已知的单个菌落生殖成功的数据结合在一起，该项目将询问更好地觅食是否会带来更高的生殖成功。 这将使您可以发现自然选择目前如何塑造蚂蚁殖民地的组织。这项工作将为包括妇女和少数民族在内的本科生和研究生提供广泛的实验室和实地研究机会。结果将纳入PI的外展活动，包括为公众写作和讲话，以及在当地学校的志愿者工作。现在，这个长期项目为任何社交昆虫人群提供了最重要的人口统计数据，这将为有兴趣使用它的人们使用。