Colony-level aggression escalates with the value of food resources

BMC Ecology and Evolution

Research

Ben L. Phillips¹  Mark A. Elgar¹  Shaolin Han² 

[1] School of Biosciences, University of Melbourne, 3010, Melbourne, VIC, Australia;School of Biosciences, University of Melbourne, 3010, Melbourne, VIC, Australia;School of Biological Sciences, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China;Centre for Immunology & Infection, New Territories, Hong Kong SAR, China;

关键词: Aggression;    Escalation;    Group contest;    Social insect;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12862-023-02117-x

 received in 2023-01-04, accepted in 2023-04-27,  发布年份 2023

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundTheory predicts that the level of escalation in animal contests is associated with the value of the contested resource. This fundamental prediction has been empirically confirmed by studies of dyadic contests but has not been tested experimentally in the collective context of group-living animals. Here, we used the Australian meat ant Iridomyrmex purpureus as a model and employed a novel field experimental manipulation of the value of food that removes the potentially confounding effects of nutritional status of the competing individual workers. We draw on insights from the Geometric Framework for nutrition to investigate whether group contests between neighbouring colonies escalate according to the value to the colony of a contested food resource.ResultsFirst, we show that colonies of I. purpureus value protein according to their past nutritional intake, deploying more foragers to collect protein if their previous diet had been supplemented with carbohydrate rather than with protein. Using this insight, we show that colonies contesting more highly valued food escalated the contest, by deploying more workers and engaging in lethal ‘grappling’ behaviour.ConclusionOur data confirm that a key prediction of contest theory, initially intended for dyadic contests, is similarly applicable to group contests. Specifically, we demonstrate, through a novel experimental procedure, that the contest behaviour of individual workers reflects the nutritional requirements of the colony, rather than that of individual workers.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© The Author(s) 2023

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