Feeding and stocking up: radio-labelled food reveals exchange patterns in ants.

Food sharing is vital for a large number of species, either solitary or social, and is of particular importance within highly integrated societies, such as in colonial organisms and in social insects. Nevertheless, the mechanisms that govern the distribution of food inside a complex organizational s...

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Autores principales:	Aurélie Buffin, Damien Denis, Gaetan Van Simaeys, Serge Goldman, Jean-Louis Deneubourg
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2009
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/f4d16c7679d34c109d5970c32c5369a8
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id	oai:doaj.org-article:f4d16c7679d34c109d5970c32c5369a8
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:f4d16c7679d34c109d5970c32c5369a82021-11-25T06:22:04ZFeeding and stocking up: radio-labelled food reveals exchange patterns in ants.1932-620310.1371/journal.pone.0005919https://doaj.org/article/f4d16c7679d34c109d5970c32c5369a82009-06-01T00:00:00Zhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmid/19536275/pdf/?tool=EBIhttps://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203Food sharing is vital for a large number of species, either solitary or social, and is of particular importance within highly integrated societies, such as in colonial organisms and in social insects. Nevertheless, the mechanisms that govern the distribution of food inside a complex organizational system remain unknown. Using scintigraphy, a method developed for medical imaging, we were able to describe the dynamics of food-flow inside an ant colony. We monitored the sharing process of a radio-labelled sucrose solution inside a nest of Formica fusca. Our results show that, from the very first load that enters the nest, food present within the colony acts as negative feedback to entering food. After one hour of the experiments, 70% of the final harvest has already entered the nest. The total foraged quantity is almost four times smaller than the expected storage capacity. A finer study of the spatial distribution of food shows that although all ants have been fed rapidly (within 30 minutes), a small area representing on average 8% of the radioactive surface holds more than 25% of the stored food. Even in rather homogeneous nests, we observed a strong concentration of food in few workers. Examining the position of these workers inside the nest, we found heavily loaded ants in the centre of the aggregate. The position of the centre of this high-intensity radioactive surface remained stable for the three consecutive hours of the experiments. We demonstrate that the colony simultaneously managed to rapidly feed all workers (200 ants fed within 30 minutes) and build up food stocks to prevent food shortage, something that occurs rather often in changing environments. Though we expected the colony to forage to its maximum capacity, the flow of food entering the colony is finely tuned to the colony's needs. Indeed the food-flow decreases proportionally to the food that has already been harvested, liberating the work-force for other tasks.Aurélie BuffinDamien DenisGaetan Van SimaeysSerge GoldmanJean-Louis DeneubourgPublic Library of Science (PLoS)articleMedicineRScienceQENPLoS ONE, Vol 4, Iss 6, p e5919 (2009)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Aurélie Buffin Damien Denis Gaetan Van Simaeys Serge Goldman Jean-Louis Deneubourg Feeding and stocking up: radio-labelled food reveals exchange patterns in ants.
description	Food sharing is vital for a large number of species, either solitary or social, and is of particular importance within highly integrated societies, such as in colonial organisms and in social insects. Nevertheless, the mechanisms that govern the distribution of food inside a complex organizational system remain unknown. Using scintigraphy, a method developed for medical imaging, we were able to describe the dynamics of food-flow inside an ant colony. We monitored the sharing process of a radio-labelled sucrose solution inside a nest of Formica fusca. Our results show that, from the very first load that enters the nest, food present within the colony acts as negative feedback to entering food. After one hour of the experiments, 70% of the final harvest has already entered the nest. The total foraged quantity is almost four times smaller than the expected storage capacity. A finer study of the spatial distribution of food shows that although all ants have been fed rapidly (within 30 minutes), a small area representing on average 8% of the radioactive surface holds more than 25% of the stored food. Even in rather homogeneous nests, we observed a strong concentration of food in few workers. Examining the position of these workers inside the nest, we found heavily loaded ants in the centre of the aggregate. The position of the centre of this high-intensity radioactive surface remained stable for the three consecutive hours of the experiments. We demonstrate that the colony simultaneously managed to rapidly feed all workers (200 ants fed within 30 minutes) and build up food stocks to prevent food shortage, something that occurs rather often in changing environments. Though we expected the colony to forage to its maximum capacity, the flow of food entering the colony is finely tuned to the colony's needs. Indeed the food-flow decreases proportionally to the food that has already been harvested, liberating the work-force for other tasks.
format	article
author	Aurélie Buffin Damien Denis Gaetan Van Simaeys Serge Goldman Jean-Louis Deneubourg
author_facet	Aurélie Buffin Damien Denis Gaetan Van Simaeys Serge Goldman Jean-Louis Deneubourg
author_sort	Aurélie Buffin
title	Feeding and stocking up: radio-labelled food reveals exchange patterns in ants.
title_short	Feeding and stocking up: radio-labelled food reveals exchange patterns in ants.
title_full	Feeding and stocking up: radio-labelled food reveals exchange patterns in ants.
title_fullStr	Feeding and stocking up: radio-labelled food reveals exchange patterns in ants.
title_full_unstemmed	Feeding and stocking up: radio-labelled food reveals exchange patterns in ants.
title_sort	feeding and stocking up: radio-labelled food reveals exchange patterns in ants.
publisher	Public Library of Science (PLoS)
publishDate	2009
url	https://doaj.org/article/f4d16c7679d34c109d5970c32c5369a8
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Feeding and stocking up: radio-labelled food reveals exchange patterns in ants.

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