Oettler, Jan and Nachtigal, Anna-Lena and Schrader, Lukas (2015) Expression of the Foraging Gene Is Associated with Age Polyethism, Not Task Preference, in the Ant Cardiocondyla obscurior. PLOS ONE, 10 (12): e0144699. ISSN 1932-6203,
Full text not available from this repository. (Request a copy)Abstract
One of the fundamental principles of social organization, age polyethism, describes behavioral maturation of workers leading to switches in task preference. Here we present a system that allows for studying division of labor (DOL) by taking advantage of the relative short life of Cardiocondyla obscurior workers and thereby the pace of behavioral transitions. By challenging same-age young and older age cohorts to de novo establish DOL into nurse and foraging tasks and by forcing nurses to precociously become foragers and vice versa we studied expression patterns of one of the best known candidates for social insect worker behavior, the foraging gene. Contrary to our expectations we found that foraging gene expression correlates with age, but not with the task foraging per se. This suggests that this nutrition-related gene, and the pathways it is embedded in, correlates with physiological changes over time and potentially primes, but not determines task preference of individual workers.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | DIVISION-OF-LABOR; HARVESTER ANT; PLASTICITY; SOCIETIES; BEHAVIORS; COLONIES; |
| Subjects: | 500 Science > 590 Zoological sciences |
| Divisions: | Biology, Preclinical Medicine > Institut für Zoologie |
| Depositing User: | Dr. Gernot Deinzer |
| Date Deposited: | 03 May 2019 13:06 |
| Last Modified: | 03 May 2019 13:06 |
| URI: | https://pred.uni-regensburg.de/id/eprint/4292 |
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