Abstract
Colony relocation is an important aspect in the lives of social insects. In ants, the process of relocation is further complicated as brood, in addition to adults, have to be transported to the new nest. Here, we have investigated brood transport in the Indian ponerine ant Diacamma indicum, which uses tandem running—a primitive mode of recruitment—for the entire colony to relocate. We have found that there were no brood transport specialists and most of the brood was transported in the mandibles of followers that were being tandem run. Therefore, in a single tandem run, one adult and one brood item was effectively transported by tandem leaders augmenting the relocation process.
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Acknowledgments
Behavioural observation and analyses were carried out by RK. The project was initiated and supervised by SA and funded by Department of Science and Technology (DST) grant, SR/FT/LS-179/2009. RK was funded by Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), India. Our experiments comply with the regulations of animal care in India.
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Kaur, R., Sumana, A. Coupled adult-brood transport augments relocation in the Indian queenless ant Diacamma indicum . Insect. Soc. 61, 141–143 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00040-014-0338-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00040-014-0338-6