USF St. Petersburg campus Faculty Publications
Yoyo-bang: a risk-aversion investment strategy by a perennial insect society.
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2002
Abstract
In 1978, Oster and Wilson proposed a bangbang investment strategy for social insects in which colony size at maturity amplifies colony reproduction. In this paper, the investment strategies of the monogyne form of the fire ant, Solenopsis invicta, were compared to the predictions of the bang-bang model. Demographic census data, collected on fire ant mounds excavated every month during the years 1985 and 1988, revealed that colony reproduction was independent of colony size (~50,000 to ~250,000 workers). Why were mature S. invicta colonies up to five times larger than they needed to be to reproduce an annual batch of sexual offspring? To address this question, Oster and Wilson’s bang-bang model was modified to a “yoyo-bang” investment strategy for perennial societies. In the yoyo-bang model, excess workers are a disposable reserve –a buffer – that can oscillate up or down depending on resource availability without adversely affecting annual reproductive cycles. The yoyo-bang model links colony size, colony survival and lifetime reproductive fitness.
Language
en_US
Publisher
Springer Verlag
Recommended Citation
Cassill, D. (2002). Yoyo-bang: a risk-aversion investment strategy by a perennial insect society. Oecologia,132, 150-158. doi: 10.1007/s00442-002-0928-2
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Comments
Abstract only. Full-text article is available only through licensed access provided by the publisher. Published in Oecologia,132, 150-158. doi: 10.1007/s00442-002-0928-2 Members of the USF System may access the full-text of the article through the authenticated link provided.