Ant social network structure is highly conserved across species.
Details
Serval ID
serval:BIB_C29CAFF0B415
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Title
Ant social network structure is highly conserved across species.
Journal
Proceedings. Biological sciences
ISSN
1471-2954 (Electronic)
ISSN-L
0962-8452
Publication state
Published
Issued date
07/2024
Peer-reviewed
Oui
Volume
291
Number
2027
Pages
20240898
Language
english
Notes
Publication types: Journal Article
Publication Status: ppublish
Publication Status: ppublish
Abstract
The ecological success of social insects makes their colony organization fascinating to scientists studying collective systems. In recent years, the combination of automated behavioural tracking and social network analysis has deepened our understanding of many aspects of colony organization. However, because studies have typically worked with single species, we know little about interspecific variation in network structure. Here, we conduct a comparative network analysis across five ant species from five subfamilies, separated by more than 100 Myr of evolution. We find that social network structure is highly conserved across subfamilies. All species studied form modular networks, with two social communities, a similar distribution of individuals between the two communities, and equivalent mapping of task performance onto the communities. Against this backdrop of organizational similarity, queens of the different species occupied qualitatively distinct network positions. The deep conservation of the two community structure implies that the most fundamental behavioural division of labour in social insects is between workers that stay in the nest to rear brood, and those that leave the nest to forage. This division has parallels across the animal kingdom in systems of biparental care and probably represents the most readily evolvable form of behavioural division of labour.
Keywords
Ants/physiology, Animals, Social Behavior, Behavior, Animal, Species Specificity, Biological Evolution, ants, collective behaviour, division of labour, social insects, social network analysis, social organization
Pubmed
Open Access
Yes
Create date
05/08/2024 15:08
Last modification date
06/08/2024 6:03