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Annual Life Cycle of the Anthill of Formica s. str. (Hymenoptera, Formicidae)

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Abstract

A scheme of periodization of the annual life cycle of the red forest ants’ environment is suggested. The scheme includes 4 main and 4 transitional periods, the boundaries of which are consistent with the natural calendar of the European part of Russia. The functional structure of the annual cycle is considered. Each of the 5 forms of social activity: reproductive, providing energy resources, nesting, demographic, and sociostructural is a cyclic pool of events, which together form the annual cycle of the society. Periods obligately succeed each other, and prerequisites and resources are formed in each previous period for the implementation of the next one. In the annual cycle, there is a regular change in the general priority tasks, the fulfillment of which requires the participation of large masses of ants and the successive change of functions in workers. These functions change not only with age or caste polyethism, but also obey priority tasks, which can be defined as seasonal polyethism. The presence of seasonal functional groups of workers in families of red wood ants is shown, the ways of their formation are described using the example of the winter structure consisting of three functional groups: retinues of females, stock keepers, and mobile workers. Different duration of the intervals of formation of winter and summer functional groups in the red forest ants is substantiated.

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  1. A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution, Russian Academy of Sciences, 119071, Moscow, Russia

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Zakharov, A.A., Zakharov, R.A. Annual Life Cycle of the Anthill of Formica s. str. (Hymenoptera, Formicidae). Entmol. Rev. 102, 413–431 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1134/S0013873822040017

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