Rules of supply and demand regulate recruitment to food in an ant society
- D. Cassill
- Environmental ScienceBehavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
- 7 June 2003
Recruitment was an emergent property based on competent supply and demand decisions made face-to-face inside the nest rather than on the trail or at the food site.
Allocation of liquid food to larvae via trophallaxis in colonies of the fire ant, Solenopsis invicta
- D. Cassill, W. Tschinkel
- Biology, Environmental ScienceAnimal Behaviour
- 31 December 1995
Yoyo-bang: a risk-aversion investment strategy by a perennial insect society
- D. Cassill
- Environmental ScienceOecologia
- 1 June 2002
The investment strategies of the monogyne form of the fire ant, Solenopsis invicta, were compared to the predictions of the bang-bang model and a "yoyo-bang" investment strategy for perennial societies was modified to link colony size, colony survival and lifetime reproductive fitness.
Task selection by workers of the fire ant Solenopsis invicta
- D. Cassill, W. Tschinkel
- Environmental ScienceBehavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
- 23 March 1999
It appeared that worker size and age offered coarse regulation of task selection by workers, whereas crop fullness, flexible response, and task switching fine-tuned task selection.
Nest complexity, group size and brood rearing in the fire ant, Solenopsis invicta
- D. Cassill, W. Tschinkel, S. Vinson
- Environmental ScienceInsectes Sociaux
- 1 May 2002
Colonies of the monogyne social form of the red imported fire ant, Solenopsis invicta, may contain half a million workers per nest, which requires a pragmatic architectural design for efficiently organizing such a large group within the confines of a single nest.
Impact of worker longevity and other endogenous factors on colony size in the fire ant, Solenopsis invicta
- E. Asano, D. Cassill
- EconomicsInsectes Sociaux
- 19 June 2011
Central to the survival and reproduction of social insect queens is the size of colonies at maturity. The influence of exogenous factors such as predation, food abundance, and seasonal changes in…
Intraspecific and interspecific competition of Wyeomyia smithii (Coq.) (Culicidae) in pitcher plant communities
- T. Miller, D. Cassill, R. Richard
- Biology
- 1994
The inquiline communities found in the leaves of the purple pitcher plant Sarracenia purpurea L.purpurea are investigated, finding no general patterns were found among the abundances of common species or in correlations between biotic and abiotic variables.
A duration constant for worker-to-larva trophallaxis in fire ants
- D. Cassill, W. Tschinkel
- BiologyInsectes Sociaux
- 1 June 1996
In 4th-instar fire ant larvae, the duration of trophallaxis, bolus size, and the rate at which boluses were swallowed were all constant, indicating that the volume of food ingested during each worker-larva trophalaxis was both small and constant.
Effects of colony-level attributes on larval feeding in the fire ant, Solenopsis invicta
- D. Cassill, W. Tschinkel
- Environmental ScienceInsectes Sociaux
- 1 July 1999
Investigation of the effects of colony size and worker:brood ratio on the rate of worker-to-larva trophallaxis in the fire ant reinforced previous research demonstrating that social feeding in theFire ant emerges from localized interactions rather than mass communication.
Brood Care Strategies by Newly Mated Monogyne Solenopsis invicta (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) Queens During Colony Founding
- D. Cassill
- Biology
- 1 March 2002
It is revealed that newly mated queens were endowed with a suite of compensatory brood rearing strategies enabling them to succeed in founding a colony in the absence of worker labor.
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