Who Are the “Lazy” Ants? The Function of Inactivity in Social Insects and a Possible Role of Constraint: Inactive Ants Are Corpulent and May Be Young and/or Selfish

摘要: Social insect colonies are commonly thought of as highly organized and efficient complex systems, yet high levels worker inactivity common. Although consistently inactive workers have been documented across many species, very little is known about the potential function or costs associated with this behavior. Here we ask what distinguishes these "lazy" individuals from their nestmates. We obtained a large set behavioral morphological data individuals, tested for consistency following evolutionary hypotheses: that results constraint caused by (a) immaturity (b) senescence; (c) reproducing; perform cryptic task such (d) acting communication hubs (e) food stores; (f) represent "slow-paced" end inter-worker variation in "pace-of-life." show walk more slowly, small spatial fidelity zones near nest center, corpulent, isolated colony interaction networks, smallest repertoires, likely to oocytes than other workers. These consistent hypotheses immature and/or storing colony; they suggest not consequence senescence, hubs. The listed above mutually exclusive, form "syndrome" behaviors common social Their simultaneous contribution may explain difficulty finding simple answer deceptively question.