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Numbers count: caste-specific component Allee effects and their interactions

journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-08, 15:43 authored by William HughesWilliam Hughes
A queen and worker of the Argentine ant Linepithema humile. The numbers of queens and of workers in a colony each have positive relationships with components of fitness. Photo and copyright: Alexander Wild. In Focus: AU - Luque, G. , AU - Giraud, T. & AU - Courchamp, F. (2013) Allee effects in ants. Journal of Animal Ecology,. 82, 956–965. Allee effects, positive relationships between fitness and the number or density of conspecifics, are surprisingly widespread and are of profound importance for understanding ecological dynamics. Lucque et al. (2013) provide the first explicit demonstration of Allee effects in a social insect. Using laboratory colonies of the Argentine ant, they show that there are component Allee effects of both workers and queens which interact with negative frequency-dependent effects. Such Allee effects are central to the ecology and evolution of social insects, the societies of which provide a rich, experimentally tractable resource for understanding the mechanisms and impact of Allee effects.

History

Publication status

  • Published

Journal

Journal of Animal Ecology

ISSN

0021-8790

Publisher

Wiley

Issue

5

Volume

82

Page range

923-926

Department affiliated with

  • Evolution, Behaviour and Environment Publications

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2015-11-09

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    University of Sussex (Publications)

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