SYNCHRONIZATION OF THE BEHAVIOR WITHIN NESTS OF THE ANT LEPTOTHORAX-ACERVORUM (FABRICIUS) .1. DISCOVERING THE PHENOMENON AND ITS RELATION TO THE LEVEL OF STARVATION

Workers of the species Leptothorax acervorum show age-polyethism, they start their life as broodworkers and later on they become nestworkers and foragers. Nestworkers and foragers of this ant species are inactive for 72% and 15% of the total time respectively. The short bursts of activity within the nest do not occur randomly but are synchronized so that the whole nest population exhibits nonperiodic pulses of activity: the ants were seen to wake each other actively. In addition starvation experiments were done to assess whether ants react upon food availability. In appeared that during a longlasting period of starvation the proportion of active ants in the nest is at a higher approximately constant level. © 1990 Society for Mathematical Biology.