Early social context does not influence behavioral variation at adulthood in ants  

作　　者：Iago SANMARTÍN-VILLAR Raphaël JEANSON 

机构地区：[1]Centre de Recherches Sur la Cognition Animale,Centre de Biologie Intégrative,Universitéde Toulouse,CNRS,UPS,Toulouse,France [2]Universidade de Vigo,ECOEVO Lab,Escola de Enxeñaría Forestal,Campus A Xunqueira,Pontevedra,Spain

出　　处：《Current Zoology》2022年第3期335-344,共10页动物学报（英文版）

基　　金：Funding was provided by CNRS (www.cnrs.fr) and Université Toulouse III (www.univ-tlse3.fr) to R.J. I.S.-V. was funded by a post-doctoral fellowship of the Galician government (Xunta de Galicia, Axudas de apoio á etapa posdoutoral 2017,ref: ED481B-2017/034). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

摘　　要：Early experience can prepare offspring to adapt their behaviors to the environment they are likely to encounter later in life. In several species of ants, colonies show ontogenic changes in the brood-to-worker ratio that are known to have an impact on worker morphology. However, little information is available on the influence of fluctuations in the early social context on the expression of behavior in adulthood. Using the ant Lasius niger, we tested whether the brood-to-worker ratio during larval stages influenced the level of behavioral variability at adult stages. We raised batches of 20 or 180 larvae in the presence of 60 workers until adulthood. We then quantified the activity level and wall-following tendency of callow workers on 10 successive trials to test the prediction that larvae reared under a high brood-to-worker ratio should show greater behavioral variations. We found that manipulation of the brood-to-worker ratio influenced the duration of development and the size of individuals at emergence. We detected no influence of early social context on the level of between- or within-individual variation measured for individual activity level or on wall-following behavior. Our study suggests that behavioral traits may be more canalized than morphological traits.

关 键 词：brood care CANALIZATION locomotion METAMORPHOSIS ONTOGENY variability 

分 类 号：Q958.11[生物学—动物学]