Nutritional Asymmetries Are Related to Division of Labor in a Queenless Ant 英文参考文献.docVIP

NutritionalAsymmetriesAreRelatedtoDivisionofLabor inaQueenlessAnt ChrisR.Smith1*,AndrewV.Suarez2,NeilD.Tsutsui3,SarahE.Wittman4,BenjaminEdmonds5 ,Alex Freauff5,ChadwickV.Tillberg5 1DepartmentofBiology,EarlhamCollege,Richmond,Indiana,UnitedStatesofAmerica,2DepartmentsofAnimalBiologyandEntomology,UniversityofIllinois,Urbana, Illinois,UnitedStatesofAmerica,3DepartmentofEnvironmentalScience,PolicyandManagement,UniversityofCalifornia,Berkeley,California,UnitedStatesofAmerica, 4DepartmentofBotany,LaTrobeUniversity,Melbourne,Victoria,Australia,5DepartmentofBiology,LinfieldCollege,McMinnville,Oregon,UnitedStatesofAmerica Abstract Eusocialspeciesexhibitpronounceddivisionoflabor,mostnotablybetweenreproductiveandnon-reproductivecastes,but also within non-reproductive castes via morphological specialization and temporal polyethism. For species with distinct workerandqueencastes,age-relateddifferencesinbehavioramongworkers(e.g.within-nesttasksversusforaging)appear toresultfromphysiologicalchangessuchasdecreasedlipidcontent.However,weknowlittleabouthowlaborisdivided amongindividualsinspeciesthatlackadistinctqueencaste.Inthisstudy,weinvestigatedhowfatstoragevariedamong individuals in a species of ant (Dinoponera australis) that lacks a distinct queen caste and in which all individuals are morphologicallysimilarandcapableofreproduction(totipotentatbirth).Wedistinguishbetweentwohypotheses,1)all individuals are physiologically similar, consistent with the possibility that any non-reproductive may eventually become reproductive,and2)non-reproductiveindividualsvaryinstoredfat,similartohighlyeusocialspecies,wheredepletionis associatedwithforagingandnon-reproductiveshavelowerlipidstoresthanreproducingindividuals.Ourdatasupportthe latterhypothesis.Locationinthenest,theprobabilityofforaging,andforagingeffort,wereallassociatedwithdecreasedfat storage. Citation:SmithCR,SuarezAV,TsutsuiND,WittmanSE,EdmondsB,etal.(2011)NutritionalAsymmetriesAreRelatedtoDivisionofLaborinaQueenlessAnt.PLoS ONE