Foraging, nutrition storage, and phenotypic plasticity in the major worker subcaste of Pheidole noda Smith (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

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  • YOKOTA Satoshi
    Department of Applied Biological Sciences, Faculty of Agriculture, Saga University
  • YAMAWO Akira
    Department of Applied Biological Sciences, Faculty of Agriculture, Saga University
  • SUZUKI Nobuhiko
    Department of Applied Biological Sciences, Faculty of Agriculture, Saga University

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  • オオズアリのメジャーワーカーにおける採餌と栄養貯蔵,および表現型可塑性
  • オオズアリ ノ メジャーワーカー ニ オケル サイジ ト エイヨウ チョゾウ,オヨビ ヒョウゲンガタ カソセイ

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Abstract

To elucidate the ecological significance of worker polymorphism in ants, quantitative analyses were conducted of the division of labor system and phenotypic plasticity in Pheidole noda exhibiting dimorphism (major and minor workers) in the worker caste. In the laboratory, we examined the numbers and behavior of major and minor workers and their modes in a foraging area with emplaced a whole prey cricket or minced cricket. When whole crickets were provided in the foraging area, many major workers appeared and worked mostly at prey dismantlement. Minor workers mainly transported the crickets without dismantling them. In colonies comprising only a queen and minor workers, we observed several times that the queen appeared in the foraging area to dismantle whole crickets. When subcolonies of three types, i.e., those with 20 minor workers and a major worker with a distended abdomen, 20 minor workers and a major worker with a normal-sized abdomen, and 21 minor workers, were kept under a starving condition, the survival period of minor workers was significantly longer in subcolonies with a major worker having a distended abdomen than in the others. That result suggests that major workers with a distended abdomen have the function of nutrition storage. The major worker ratio was not significantly different between subcolonies that had been fed only with minced crickets for 63 days and those that had been fed only with whole crickets during the same period, but the major worker head size was significantly larger in colonies fed whole crickets than in those fed with minced ones. These results indicate that P. noda changes the major worker phenotype, not the ratio, in response to different foraging requirements for the subcaste.

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