ArticleScientific reports2021
Ant nest architecture is shaped by local adaptation and plastic response to temperature.
Article in Scientific reports, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Foraging behaviour affects nest architecture in a cross-species comparison of ant nests.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Pooled it
- Social behavior and climate change: how rising temperatures shape insect societies.Current opinion in insect science · 2026Review
- Forest islands sustain more temporally stable insect metacommunities in a heterogeneous tropical mountaintop landscape.npj biodiversity · 2026Article
- Hungary's Current Climate Conditions Converge With the North-Mediterranean of the 1980s: A Case Study in Mediterranean Ant Species New to Hungary.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Article
- Nest Entrance Architecture and the Regulation of Foraging Activity in Desert Harvester Ants.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Article
- Ground warming boosts cooperative transport in a temperate ant species.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Cold comfort: metabolic rate and tolerance to low temperatures predict latitudinal distribution in ants.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Need for shared internal mound conditions by fungus-growingPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Manipulating nest architecture reveals three-dimensional building strategies and colony resilience in honeybees.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Ontogeny of collective behaviour.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Review
- Harvester ant nest architecture is more strongly affected by intrinsic than extrinsic factors.Behavioral ecology : official journal of the International Society for Behavioral EcologyArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Social insects are among the most abundant arthropods in terrestrial ecosystems, where they provide ecosystem services. The effect of subterranean activity of ants on soil is well-studied, yet little is known about nest architecture due to the difficulty of observing belowground patterns. Furthermore, many species' ranges span environmental gradients, and their nest architecture is likely shaped by the climatic and landscape features of their specific habitats. We investigated the effects of two temperature treatments on the shape and size of nests built by Formica podzolica ants collected from high and low elevations in the Colorado Rocky Mountains in a full factorial experiment. Ants nested in experimental chambers with soil surface temperatures matching the local temperatures of sample sites. We observed a plastic response of nest architecture to conditions experienced during excavation; workers experiencing a high temperature excavated deeper nests than those experiencing a cooler temperature. Further, we found evidence of local adaptation to temperature, with a significant interaction effect of natal elevation and temperature treatment on nest size and complexity. Specifically, workers from high elevation sites built larger nests with more tunnels when placed in the cool surface temperature treatment, and workers from low elevation sites exhibited the opposite pattern. Our results suggest that subterranean ant nest architecture is shaped by a combination of plastic and locally adapted building behaviors; we suggest that the flexibility of this 'extended phenotype' likely contributes to the widespread success of ants.
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Registered trials
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