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The influence of intraspecific competition on resource allocation during dependent colony foundation in a social insect

  • Behavioral ecology - Original Paper
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Abstract

Organisms face a trade-off between investment in fewer, larger offspring, or more, smaller offspring. Most organisms can adjust investment through variation in the size and number of offspring in response to factors such as resource availability and competition. In some social animals, established colonies divide into groups of individuals that become autonomous, a process known as colony fission (also dependent colony foundation in social insects). Resource allocation under fission can be fine-tuned by adjusting the number of new groups (offspring number) and the number of individuals in each new group (offspring size). We assessed the influence of competition on resource allocation during fission in the ant Cataglyphis cursor, by allowing colonies to fission in experimental enclosures of high or low conspecific colony density. The pattern of colony fission was similar to that observed in the field: each fissioning colony produced a few new nests comprising a highly variable number of workers and a single queen, the old queen was often replaced, and new queens were produced in excess. The number of new nests produced depended on the available workforce in the parent colony but was not affected by differences in colony density. Comparison with data from fission under natural field conditions, however, indicates that colonies in enclosures produced fewer, larger new nests, suggesting that resource investment patterns during fission are indeed subject to extrinsic factors. The density of conspecific colonies in the immediate surroundings may be an unreliable estimate of competition intensity and other factors should be considered.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the Laboratoire Arago (Observatoire Océanologique de Banyuls-sur-mer, Université Pierre et Marie Curie) for permitting this study to take place on the experimental grounds of the Mediterranean Garden of Mas de la Serre, and the Coast Conservation Office (“Conservatoire du littoral”) for allowing the collection of ‘competitive’ colonies in a protected bird nesting area in Saint Cyprien. We are very grateful to Laurent Belkadi, Nathalie Guillory, Claudy Haussy, David Laloi, Jean-Christophe Lenoir and Claire Tirard for help in erecting the enclosures. We also thank Mathieu Molet for help collecting and installing colonies and Peter Nonacs, Alain Lenoir and three anonymous referees for helpful comments on this and an earlier version of the manuscript. This work was funded by ANR-06-BLAN-0268.

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Author notes

  1. Adam L. Cronin

    Present address: United Graduate School of Agriculture, Iwate University, 3-18-8 Ueda, Morioka, 020-8550, Japan

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire Écologie & Évolution UMR 7625, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, 7 quai St Bernard, 75252, Paris, France

    Adam L. Cronin, Pierre Fédérici, Claudie Doums & Thibaud Monnin

  2. École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris, France

    Claudie Doums

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  1. Adam L. Cronin
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  2. Pierre Fédérici
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  3. Claudie Doums
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  4. Thibaud Monnin
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Correspondence to Adam L. Cronin.

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Communicated by Jérome Casas.

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Cronin, A.L., Fédérici, P., Doums, C. et al. The influence of intraspecific competition on resource allocation during dependent colony foundation in a social insect. Oecologia 168, 361–369 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-011-2098-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-011-2098-6

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