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Monomorphic ants undergo within-colony morphological changes along the metal-pollution gradient

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Abstract

In ants, intra and inter-colony variation in body size can be considerable, even in monomorphic species. It has been previously shown that size-related parameters can be environmentally sensitive. The shape of the body size distribution curve is, however, rarely investigated. In this study, we measured head widthes of the black garden ant Lasius niger workers using digital methods. The ants were sampled from 51 colonies originating from 19 sites located along a metal pollution gradient, established in a former mining area in Poland. Total zinc concentrations in random samples of small invertebrates were used as a measure of site pollution levels. We found that the skewness of head size distribution grows significantly in line with the pollution level of the site, ranging from values slightly below zero (about −0.5) in the least polluted site up to a positive value (about 1.5) in the most polluted site. This result indicates that the frequency of small ants grows as pollution levels increase. The coefficient of variation, as well as the measures of central tendency, was not related to the pollution level. Four hypotheses explaining the obtained results are proposed. The bias towards the higher frequency of small workers may result from energy limitation and/or metal toxicity, but may also have an adaptive function.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by The National Science Center (NCN), grant 2011/01/D/NZ8/00167 and partially by the University of Agriculture, BM 4220. We are grateful to Tomer Czaczkes for helpful comments and corrections that improved the manuscript. We thank Ryszard Laskowski for his advice and useful discussion. We also thank Anna Stefanowicz, Magdalena Witek and Sławomir Mitrus for critical reading of the earlier version of the manuscript and Patrycja Gibas for performing these metal analysis. Katarzyna Wardzała, Patrycja Żywiec and Beata Ślusarczyk assisted in the fieldwork.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Zoology, University of Agriculture in Cracow, Mickiewicza 24/28, 30-056, Kraków, Poland

    Irena M. Grześ & Mateusz Okrutniak

  2. Department of Botany, Institute of Biology, Pedagogical University of Kraków, Podchorążych 2, 31-054, Kraków, Poland

    Marcin W. Woch

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  1. Irena M. Grześ
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  2. Mateusz Okrutniak
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Correspondence to Irena M. Grześ.

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Grześ, I.M., Okrutniak, M. & Woch, M.W. Monomorphic ants undergo within-colony morphological changes along the metal-pollution gradient. Environ Sci Pollut Res 22, 6126–6134 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-014-3808-5

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