ArticlePloS one2015
Nest etiquette--where ants go when nature calls.
Article in PloS one, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 29 citations in OpenAlex.
- Social organization and physical environment shape the microbiome of harvester ants.Animal microbiome · 2025Article
- Ant-Plant Mutualism inInsects · 2024Article
- The power of poop: Defecation behaviors and social hygiene in insects.PLoS pathogens · 2021Review
- Article
- Ant workers produce males in queenless parts of multi-nest colonies.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- Foodborne Transmission of Deformed Wing Virus to Ants (Insects · 2019Article
- Corpse management of the invasive Argentine ant inhibits growth of pathogenic fungi.Scientific reports · 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
- Architecture, space and information in constructions built by humans and social insects: a conceptual review.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2018Review
- Symbiont-Mediated Host-Parasite Dynamics in a Fungus-Gardening Ant.Microbial ecology · 2018Article
- Social life and sanitary risks: evolutionary and current ecological conditions determine waste management in leaf-cutting ants.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2016Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Sanitary behaviour is an important, but seldom studied, aspect of social living. Social insects have developed several strategies for dealing with waste and faecal matter, including dumping waste outside the nest and forming specialised waste-storage chambers. In some cases waste material and faeces are put to use, either as a construction material or as a long-lasting signal, suggesting that faeces and waste may not always be dangerous. Here we examine a previously undescribed behaviour in ants - the formation of well-defined faecal patches. Lasius niger ants were housed in plaster nests and provided with coloured sucrose solution. After two months, 1-4 well defined dark patches, the colour of the sucrose solution, formed within each of the plaster nests. These patches never contained other waste material such as uneaten food items, or nestmate corpses. Such waste was collected in waste piles outside the nest. The coloured patches were thus distinct from previously described 'kitchen middens' in ants, and are best described as 'toilets'. Why faeces is not removed with other waste materials is unclear. The presence of the toilets inside the nest suggests that they may not be an important source of pathogens, and may have a beneficial role.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.