ArticleBehavioral ecology and sociobiology2014
Worker senescence and the sociobiology of aging in ants.
Article in Behavioral ecology and sociobiology, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
22 citing papers in PubMed.
- The pace and shape of ant ageing.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2025Review
- Environmental Variation Contributes to Head Phenotypes in Workers ofEcology and evolution · 2025Article
- Age-resistant worker reproductive potential and effect of helpers on prolonged lifespan in an ant.BMC biology · 2025Article
- Worker Survival and Egg Production-But Not Transcriptional Activity-Respond to Queen Number in the Highly Polygynous, Invasive Ant Tapinoma magnum.Molecular ecology · 2025Article
- Eco-Morphological Responses ofInsects · 2024Article
- Cold comfort: metabolic rate and tolerance to low temperatures predict latitudinal distribution in ants.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Extreme lifespan extension in tapeworm-infected ant workers.Royal Society open science · 2021Article
- Queen loss increases worker survival in leaf-cutting ants under paraquat-induced oxidative stress.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Molecular regulation of lifespan extension in fertile ant workers.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Article
- The plasticity of lifespan in social insects.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Review
- Eusociality and Senescence: Neuroprotection and Physiological Resilience to Aging in Insect and Mammalian Systems.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2021Review
- Alternative Animal Models of Aging Research.Frontiers in molecular biosciences · 2021Review
- Article
- Red Wood Ants Display Natural Aversive Learning Differently Depending on Their Task Specialization.Frontiers in psychology · 2019Article
- The impact of the built environment on health behaviours and disease transmission in social systems.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2018Review
- Age-based soldier polyethism: old termite soldiers take more risks than young soldiers.Biology letters · 2018Article
- Group demography affects ant colony performance and individual speed of queen and worker aging.BMC evolutionary biology · 2017Article
- Intrinsic worker mortality depends on behavioral caste and the queens' presence in a social insect.Die Naturwissenschaften · 2017Article
- Age, worksite location, neuromodulators, and task performance in the antBehavioral ecology and sociobiology · 2016Article
- Lifespan behavioural and neural resilience in a social insect.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2016Article
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2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Senescence, the decline in physiological and behavioral function with increasing age, has been the focus of significant theoretical and empirical research in a broad array of animal taxa. Preeminent among invertebrate social models of aging are ants, a diverse and ecologically dominant clade of eusocial insects characterized by reproductive and sterile phenotypes. In this review, we critically examine selection for worker lifespan in ants and discuss the relationship between functional senescence, longevity, task performance, and colony fitness. We did not find strong or consistent support for the hypothesis that demographic senescence in ants is programmed, or its corollary prediction that workers that do not experience extrinsic mortality die at an age approximating their lifespan in nature. We present seven hypotheses concerning how selection could favor extended worker lifespan through its positive relationship to colony size and predict that large colony size, under some conditions, should confer multiple and significant fitness advantages. Fitness benefits derived from long worker lifespan could be mediated by increased resource acquisition, efficient division of labor, accuracy of collective decision-making, enhanced allomaternal care and colony defense, lower infection risk, and decreased energetic costs of workforce maintenance. We suggest future avenues of research to examine the evolution of worker lifespan and its relationship to colony fitness, and conclude that an innovative fusion of sociobiology, senescence theory, and mechanistic studies of aging can improve our understanding of the adaptive nature of worker lifespan in ants.
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