Ant colony
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Anant colonyis a population ofants,typically from a single species, capable of maintaining their complete lifecycle. Ant colonies areeusocial,communal, andefficiently organizedand are very much like those found in other socialHymenoptera,though the various groups of these developed sociality independently throughconvergent evolution.[1]The typical colony consists of one or moreegg-laying queens, numerous sterile females (workers, soldiers) and, seasonally, many winged sexual males and females.[2]In order to establish new colonies, ants undertake flights that occur at species-characteristic times of the day.[3]Swarms of the winged sexuals (known asalates) depart the nest in search of other nests.[4]The males die shortly thereafter, along with most of the females.[5]A small percentage of the females survive to initiate new nests.[6]
Names
[edit]The term "ant colony" refers to a population of workers, reproductive individuals, and brood that live together, cooperate, and treat one another non-aggressively. Often this comprises the genetically related progeny from a single queen, although this is not universal across ants.[6]The name "ant farm" is commonly given to ant nests that are kept informicaria,isolated from their naturalhabitat.These formicaria are formed so scientists can study by rearing or temporarily maintaining them.[7][8]Another name is "formicary", which derives from theMedieval Latinwordformīcārium.The word also derives fromformica.[9]"Ant nests" are the physical spaces in which the ants live. These can be underground, in trees, under rocks, or even inside a single acorn.[6]The name "anthill" (or "ant hill" ) applies to aboveground nests where the workers pile sand or soil outside the entrance, forming a large mound.[10]
Colony size
[edit]Colony size (the number of individuals that make up the colony) is very important to ants: it can affect how they forage, how they defend their nests, how they mate, and even their physical appearances. Body size is often seen as the most important factor in shaping the natural history[clarification needed]of non-colonial organisms; similarly, colony size is key in influencing how colonial organisms are collectively organized.[11][6]Colonies have a significant range of sizes: some are just several[clarification needed]ants living in a twig, while others are super-colonies with many millions of workers. Within a single ant colony, seasonal variation may be huge. For example, in the antDolichoderus mariae,one colony can shift from around 300 workers in the summer to over 2,000 workers per queen in the winter.[12]Genetics and environmental factors can cause the variation among different colonies of a single species to be even bigger. Different ant species, even those in the same genus, may have enormous colony size disparities:Formica yessensishas colony sizes that are reported to be 306 million workers whileFormica fuscacolonies sometimes comprise only 500 workers.[11]
Supercolonies
[edit]A supercolony occurs when many ant colonies over a large area unite. They still continue to recognize genetic differences in order to mate, but the different colonies within the super colony avoid aggression.[13]Until 2000, the largest known ant supercolony was on theIshikaricoast ofHokkaidō,Japan. The colony was estimated to contain 306 million worker ants and one million queen ants living in 45,000 nests interconnected by underground passages over an area of 2.7 km2(670 acres).[14]In 2000, an enormous supercolony ofArgentine antswas found inSouthern Europe(report published in 2002).[15]Of 33 ant populations tested along the 6,004-kilometre (3,731 mi) stretch along the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts in Southern Europe, 30 belonged to one supercolony with estimated millions of nests and billions of workers, interspersed with three populations of another supercolony.[15]The researchers claim that this case of unicoloniality cannot be explained by loss of their genetic diversity due to thegenetic bottleneckof the imported ants.[15]In 2009, it was demonstrated that the largest Japanese, Californian and EuropeanArgentine antsupercolonies were in fact part of a single global "megacolony".[16]This intercontinental megacolony represents the most populous recorded animal society on earth, other than humans.[citation needed]
Another supercolony, measuring approximately 100 km (62 mi) wide, was found beneathMelbourne,Australiain 2004.[17]
Organizational terminology
[edit]The following terminology is commonly used amongmyrmecologiststo describe the behaviors demonstrated by ants when founding and organizing colonies:[6]: p. 209
- Monogyny
- Establishment of an ant colony under a single egg-laying queen.
- Polygyny
- Establishment of an ant colony under multiple egg-laying queens.
- Oligogyny
- Establishment of a polygynous colony where the multiple egg-laying queens remain far apart from one another in the nest.
- Haplometrosis
- Establishment of a colony by a single queen.
- Pleometrosis
- Establishment of a colony by multiple queens.
- Monodomy
- Establishment of a colony at a single nest site.
- Polydomy
- Establishment of a colony across multiple nest sites.
Colony structure
[edit]Ant colonies have a complex social structure. Ants’ jobs are determined and can be changed by age. As ants grow older their jobs move them farther from the queen, or center of the colony. Younger ants work within the nest protecting the queen and young. Sometimes, a queen is not present and is replaced by egg-laying workers. These worker ants can only lay haploid eggs producing sterile offspring.[18]Despite the title of queen, she doesn't delegate the tasks to the worker ants; however, the ants choose their tasks based on individual preference.[2] Ants as a colony also work as a collective "super mind". Ants can compare areas and solve complex problems by using information gained by each member of the colony to find the best nesting site or to find food.[2]Some social-parasitic species of ants, known as theslave-making ant,raid and steallarvaefrom neighboring colonies.[19]
Excavation
[edit]Ant hill art is a growing collecting hobby. It involves pouring molten metal (typically non-toxic zinc or aluminum), plaster or cement down an ant colony mound acting as a mold and upon hardening, one excavates the resulting structure.[20]In some cases, this involves a great deal of digging.[21]The casts are often used for research and education purposes but many are simply given or sold to natural history museums or sold as folk art or as souvenirs. Usually, the hills are chosen after the ants have abandoned so as to not kill any ants; however in the Southeast United States, pouring into an active colony ofinvasivefire antsis a novel way to eliminate them.[citation needed]
Ant-beds
[edit]Anant-bed,in its simplest form, is a pile ofsoil,sand,pineneedles,manure,urine,orclayor a composite of these and other materials that build up at the entrances of the subterranean dwellings of ant colonies as they are excavated.[22]A colony is built and maintained by legions of workerants,who carry tiny bits of dirt and pebbles in theirmandiblesand deposit them near the exit of the colony.[23]They normally deposit the dirt or vegetation at the top of the hill to prevent it from sliding back into the colony, but in some species, they actively sculpt the materials into specific shapes and may create nest chambers within the mound.[citation needed]
See also
[edit]- Ant colony optimization,a technique incomputer scienceinspired by ant colonies
- Nuno sa punso,a Filipino belief about ant hills
References
[edit]- ^Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences (1999)."Convergent evolution, superefficient teams and tempo in Old and New World army ants".Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences.266(1429). Royal Society Publishing: 1697–1701.doi:10.1098/rspb.1999.0834.PMC1690180.
- ^abc"Ant Colony – ASU – Ask A Biologist".askabiologist.asu.edu.16 April 2010.
- ^"Seasonal and nocturnal periodicities in ant nuptial flights in the Tropics (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)".ResearchGate.Retrieved12 October2017.
- ^Wilson, E. O. (1957)."The Organization of a Nuptial Flight of the Ant Pheidole Sttarches Wheeler".Psyche: A Journal of Entomology.64(2): 46–50.doi:10.1155/1957/68319.ISSN0033-2615.
- ^Loiácono, Marta; Margaría, Cecilia."Hymenoptera (Sawflies, Ants, Bees, and Wasps)".Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia.3(2): 405–425.Retrieved8 December2018.
- ^abcdeHolldobler, Bert; Wilson, Edward O. (1990).The Ants.Harvard University Press.ISBN0-674-04075-9.
- ^"Word Mark: ANT FARM (renewal)".United States Patent and Trademark Office.8 January 2009.Retrieved18 January2014.
- ^Kennedy, C.H. (1951). "Myrmecological technique. IV. Collecting ants by rearing pupae".The Ohio Journal of Science.51(1): 17–20.hdl:1811/3802.
- ^"Formicary".Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary.Retrieved19 March2015.
- ^Claybourne, A. (2013).A Colony of Ants: and Other Insect Groups.Oxford, UK: Raintree Publishers. p. 12.ISBN978-1-4062-5563-8.
- ^abBurchill, A. T.; Moreau, C. S. (5 February 2016). "Colony size evolution in ants: macroevolutionary trends".Insectes Sociaux.63(2): 291–298.doi:10.1007/s00040-016-0465-3.S2CID4817407.
- ^Laskis, Kristina O.; Tschinkel, Walter R. (February 2009)."The Seasonal Natural History of the Ant, Dolichoderus mariae, in Northern Florida".Journal of Insect Science.9(2): 2.doi:10.1673/031.009.0201.PMC3011848.PMID19611227.
- ^Steiner, Florian M.; Schlick-Steiner, Birgit C.; Moder, Karl; Stauffer, Christian; Arthofer, Wolfgang; Buschinger, Alfred; Espadaler, Xavier; Christian, Erhard; Einfinger, Katrin (2007)."Abandoning Aggression but Maintaining Self-Nonself Discrimination as a First Stage in Ant Supercolony Formation".Current Biology.17(21): 1903–1907.Bibcode:2007CBio...17.1903S.doi:10.1016/j.cub.2007.09.061.PMID17964165.
- ^Higashi, S. and K. Yamauchi. "Influence of a Supercolonial Ant Formica (Formica) yessensis Forel on the Distribution of Other Ants in Ishikari Coast".Japanese Journal of Ecology,No. 29, 257–64, 1979.
- ^abcTatiana Giraud, Jes S. Pedersen, and Laurent Kelle.Evolution of supercolonies: The Argentine ants of southern Europe.The National Academy of Sciences, 2002.
- ^Ant mega-colony takes over worldBBC Wednesday, 1 July 2009 10:41 GMT.
- ^Super ant colony hits Australia.BBC News, 2004.
- ^Peeters, Christian (1 October 1991). "The occurrence of sexual reproduction among ant workers".Biological Journal of the Linnean Society.44(2): 141–152.doi:10.1111/j.1095-8312.1991.tb00612.x.ISSN0024-4066.
- ^Foitzik, S.; DeHeer, C. J.; Hunjan, D. N.; Herbers, J. M. (7 June 2001)."Coevolution in host-parasite systems: Behavioural strategies of slave-making ants and their hosts".Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.268(1472): 1139–1146.doi:10.1098/rspb.2001.1627.ISSN0962-8452.PMC1088719.PMID11375101.
- ^Anthill Art (12 March 2015)."Largest Aluminum Fire Ant Colony Cast So Far (Cast #072)".Archivedfrom the original on 22 December 2021 – via YouTube.
- ^KYLYKaHYT (24 December 2010)."Giant Ant Hill Excavated".Archivedfrom the original on 22 December 2021 – via YouTube.
- ^McCook, Henry C. (1877). "Mound-Making Ants of the Alleghenies, Their Architecture and Habits".Transactions of the American Entomological Society.6:253–296.doi:10.2307/25076323.hdl:2027/hvd.32044072277692.JSTOR25076323.
- ^Gordon, Deborah M. (January–February 1995). "The Development of Organization in an Ant Colony".American Scientist.83(1): 50–57.Bibcode:1995AmSci..83...50G.JSTOR29775362.
External links
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