Colony life history and partitioning of foraging areas in harvester ants

Talk outline:
  1. Colony life history - colonies live 15-20 yrs Reproduce and reach stable size at 5 yrs.
  2. Competition among neighboring colonies for foraging area
    When foraging trails meet:
    neighbor-stranger discrimination avoidance, fighting
  3. Benefits of foraging area: is there spatial variation in food quality?
  4. Cost of encounters
  5. Effect of colony age/size: young, small colonies more persistent than old, large ones.
  6. Foraging area and reproductive success: how competition for space could affect evolution of colony life history
Assigned reading:
1995. Gordon, D. M. The development of an ant colony's foraging range. Animal Behaviour 49: 649-659.
1992. Gordon, D. M. How colony growth affects forager intrusion in neighboring harvester ant colonies. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 31:417-427.