ArticlePLoS biology2021
Response thresholds alone cannot explain empirical patterns of division of labor in social insects.
Article in PLoS biology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 24 papers.
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Who cites it
24 citing papers in PubMed.
- Article
- Article
- Article
- Identification and Stereoselective Total Synthesis of an Insect Homosesquiterpene from the Clonal Raider AntJournal of natural products · 2025Article
- Age polyethism can emerge from social learning: A game-theoretic investigation.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
- Static allometries of caste-associated traits vary with genotype but not environment in the clonal raider ant.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- The evolution of division of labour: preconditions and evolutionary feedback.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Review
- Coevolution of larval signalling and worker response can trigger developmental caste determination in social insects.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Pheromone representation in the ant antennal lobe changes with age.Current biology : CB · 2024Article
- Ant social network structure is highly conserved across species.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Pheromone representation in the ant antennal lobe changes with age.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Task-specific odorant receptor expression in worker antennae indicates that sensory filters regulate division of labor in ants.Communications biology · 2023Article
- How honeybees respond to heat stress from the individual to colony level.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2023Article
- Behavioural individuality determines infection risk in clonal ant colonies.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Olfactory sensitivity differentiates morphologically distinct worker castes in Camponotus floridanus.BMC biology · 2023Article
- Resource sharing is sufficient for the emergence of division of labour.Nature communications · 2022Article
- Intergenerational genotypic interactions drive collective behavioural cycles in a social insect.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2022Article
- A complete absence of indirect genetic effects on brain gene expression in a highly social context.Molecular ecology · 2022Article
- Article
- Individual experience influences reconstruction of division of labour under colony disturbance in a queenless ant species.Frontiers in zoology · 2022Article
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7 authors.
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Abstract
The effects of heterogeneity in group composition remain a major hurdle to our understanding of collective behavior across disciplines. In social insects, division of labor (DOL) is an emergent, colony-level trait thought to depend on colony composition. Theoretically, behavioral response threshold models have most commonly been employed to investigate the impact of heterogeneity on DOL. However, empirical studies that systematically test their predictions are lacking because they require control over colony composition and the ability to monitor individual behavior in groups, both of which are challenging. Here, we employ automated behavioral tracking in 120 colonies of the clonal raider ant with unparalleled control over genetic, morphological, and demographic composition. We find that each of these sources of variation in colony composition generates a distinct pattern of behavioral organization, ranging from the amplification to the dampening of inherent behavioral differences in heterogeneous colonies. Furthermore, larvae modulate interactions between adults, exacerbating the apparent complexity. Models based on threshold variation alone only partially recapitulate these empirical patterns. However, by incorporating the potential for variability in task efficiency among adults and task demand among larvae, we account for all the observed phenomena. Our findings highlight the significance of previously overlooked parameters pertaining to both larvae and workers, allow the formulation of theoretical predictions for increasing colony complexity, and suggest new avenues of empirical study.
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