Early social context does not influence behavioral variation at adulthood in ants
[EN] Early experience can prepare offspring to adapt their behaviors to the environment they are likely to encounter later in life. In several species of ants, colonies show ontogenic changes in the brood-to-worker ratio that are known to have an impact on worker morphology. However, little informat...
| Autores: | , |
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Estado: | Versión actualizada desde la publicación |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2022 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Ajuntament de Barcelona |
| Repositorio: | BULERIA. Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de León |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:buleria.unileon.es:10612/25656 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://academic.oup.com/cz/article/68/3/335/6337973 https://hdl.handle.net/10612/25656 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Biología Zoología Brood care Canalization Locomotion Metamorphosis Ontogeny Variability 2408.03 Insectos 2413 Biología de Insectos (Entomología) 2401.02 Comportamiento Animal |
| Sumario: | [EN] Early experience can prepare offspring to adapt their behaviors to the environment they are likely to encounter later in life. In several species of ants, colonies show ontogenic changes in the brood-to-worker ratio that are known to have an impact on worker morphology. However, little information is available on the influence of fluctuations in the early social context on the expression of behavior in adulthood. Using the ant Lasius niger, we tested whether the brood-to-worker ratio during larval stages influenced the level of behavioral variability at adult stages. We raised batches of 20 or 180 larvae in the presence of 60 workers until adulthood. We then quantified the activity level and wall-following tendency of callow workers on 10 successive trials to test the prediction that larvae reared under a high brood-to-worker ratio should show greater behavioral variations. We found that manipulation of the brood-to-worker ratio influenced the duration of development and the size of individuals at emergence. We detected no influence of early social context on the level of between- or within-individual variation measured for individual activity level or on wall-following behavior. Our study suggests that behavioral traits may be more canalized than morphological traits |
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