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1,140 results for “Colony”
Data from: Archaeogenomic evidence from the southwestern US points to a pre-Hispanic scarlet macaw breeding colony
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Data from: Penguin ectoparasite panmixia suggests extensive host movement within a colony
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Data from: Ectoparasitism shortens the breeding season in a colonial bird
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Data from: Policing is more effective against eggs of non-natal versus natal workers at early colony stages in a bumblebee
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Data from: Effects of host colony size and hygiene behaviors on social spider kleptoparasite loads along an elevation gradient
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Data from: Unbalanced biparental care during colony foundation in two subterranean termites
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A nutritionally complete pollen-replacing diet protects honey bee colonies during stressful commercial pollination: Requirement for isofucosterol
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Spatial and temporal resource partitioning in a mixed-species colony of avian echolocators
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Data from: High-resolution estimates of crossover and noncrossover recombination from a captive baboon colony
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Data_Rcode for: American foulbrood in a honeybee colony: spore-symptom relationship and feedbacks between disease and colony development
<p>Original data and analysis (R code) for the publication</p> <p>Stephan JG, De Miranda JR, Forsgren E. (2020). American foulbrood in a honeybee colony: spore-symptom relationship and feedbacks between disease and colony development. BMC Ecology.</p>
Data and code for: Dietzel et al. Long-term shifts in the colony size structure of coral populations along the Great Barrier Reef
<p>The age or size structure of a population has a marked influence on its demography and reproductive capacity. While declines in coral cover are well documented, concomitant shifts in the size frequency distribution of coral colonies are rarely measured at large spatial scales. Here we document major shifts in the colony size structure of coral populations along the 2,300km length of the Great Barrier Reef over the past two decades. Coral colony abundances on reef crests and slopes have declined sharply across all colony size classes and in all coral taxa compared to historical baselines. Declines were particularly pronounced in the Northern and Central regions of the Great Barrier Reef, following mass coral bleaching in 2016 and 2017. The relative abundances of large colonies remained relatively stable, but this apparent stability masks steep declines in absolute abundance. The potential for recovery of older fecund corals is uncertain given the increasing frequency and intensity of disturbance events. The systematic decline in smaller colonies across regions, habitats and taxa, suggests that a decline in recruitment has further eroded the recovery potential and resilience of coral populations.</p>
Sex-specific effects of cooperative breeding and colonial nesting on prosociality in corvids
<p>The investigation of prosocial behavior is of particular interest from an evolutionary perspective. Comparisons of prosociality across non-human animal species have, however, so far largely focused on primates, and their interpretation is hampered by the diversity of paradigms and procedures used. Here we present the first systematic comparison of prosocial behavior across multiple species in a taxonomic group outside the primate order, namely the bird family Corvidae. We measured prosociality in 8 corvid species, which vary in the expression of cooperative breeding and colonial nesting. We show that cooperative breeding is positively associated with prosocial behavior across species. Also colonial nesting is associated with a stronger propensity for prosocial behavior, but only in males. The combined results of our study strongly suggest that both cooperative breeding and colonial nesting, which may both rely on heightened social tolerance at the nest, are likely evolutionary pathways to prosocial behavior in corvids.</p>
Sampling data, colony runfiles, VCFs, and Rscripts for: genomic determination of reproductive mode in facultatively parthenogenetic Opiliones
<p>Sexual reproduction may pose myriad short-term costs to females. Despite these costs, sexual reproduction is near ubiquitous. Facultative parthenogenesis is theorized to mitigate some of the costs of sex, as individuals can participate in occasional sex to limit costs while obtaining many benefits. However, most theoretical models assume sexual reproduction is fixed following mating, with no possibility of clutches of mixed reproductive ontogeny. Therefore, we asked: if coercive males are present at high frequency in a population of facultative parthenogens, will their clutches be solely sexually produced, or will there be evidence of sexually and asexually-produced offspring? How will their offspring production compare to conspecifics in low frequency male populations? We addressed our questions by collecting females and egg clutches of the facultatively parthenogenetic Opiliones species <i>Leiobunum manubriatum </i>and <i>L. globosum</i>. In <i>L. manubriatum</i>, females from populations with few males were not significantly more fecund than females from populations with higher male relative frequency, despite the potential release of the former from sexual conflict. We used three genotyping methods along with a custom set of DNA capture probes to reveal that offspring of <i>L. manubriatum </i>from these high male populations were primarily produced via asexual reproduction. This is surprising because sex ratios in these southern populations approach equality, increasing the probability for females to encounter mates and produce offspring sexually. We additionally found evidence for reproductive polymorphisms within populations. Rapid and accurate SNP genotyping data will continue to allow us to address broader evolutionary questions regarding the role of facultative reproductive modes in the maintenance of sex.</p>
Data from: Maternal allocation in relation to weather, predation, and social factors in a colonial cooperative bird
<p>Females may adjust prenatal allocation in relation to ecological conditions that affect reproductive success, such as weather conditions or predation risk. In cooperative breeders, helpers might also influence reproductive success and previous studies suggest that females can lay smaller eggs or larger clutches when breeding with more helpers. Although recent work suggests that helper effects can vary according to climatic variables, how social and ecological factors interact to shape prenatal allocation is poorly understood.</p> <p>Here, we examine how ecological and social components of the breeding environment co-vary with egg mass and clutch size, using as a model the sociable weaver (Philetairus socius), a colonial, cooperatively breeding passerine. The study spanned 9 years and included over 1900 eggs from over 550 clutches. Our analyses combined natural variation in weather conditions (rainfall before each reproductive event) with a nest predator-exclusion experiment and continuous monitoring of the mother's social environment, allowing us to estimate how individual females adjust allocation to reproduction as their number of helpers varies.</p> <p>We found that egg mass varied consistently within females and did not clearly differ in relation to rainfall or predation risk. Contrary to previous studies, there was no evidence for plastic adjustments as females gained and lost helpers and egg mass was instead better predicted by mother size and identity.</p> <p>Females laid larger clutches when breeding in environments where predation risk was experimentally reduced and after higher rainfall levels. Yet, there was no evidence for increasing clutch size as the number of helpers increased, nor for an interaction between helper effects and ecological factors.</p> <p>We conclude that while sociable weaver females can vary their clutch size, they show high individual consistency in egg mass. In addition, we found no evidence that females may maximise fitness through plastic prenatal allocation in relation to the number of helpers, or that the presence/absence of helper effects is modulated by rainfall levels or predation risk. These results challenge our current knowledge on some of the possible benefits of breeding with helpers and call for more long-term analyses on reproductive allocation adjustments in other cooperative systems.</p>
Data from: The costs of kleptoparasitism: a study of mixed-species seabird breeding colonies
Mixed-species assemblages are common in nature, providing mutual benefits to associating species including anti-predator advantages or resource facilitation. However, associating with other species may also impose costs through kleptoparasitism (food theft). Identification of these costs, and how they vary when different species breed alongside one another, is essential to understand the payoffs of mixed-species assemblages. We explore the costs of kleptoparasitism for greater crested terns Thalasseus bergii provisioning offspring at a single-species colony, where individuals suffer kleptoparasitism from conspecifics, and at a mixed colony where terns breed alongside Hartlaub's gulls Chroicocephalus hartlaubii and are vulnerable to both intra- and interspecific kleptoparasitism. Gull presence increased both kleptoparasitic attacks and the proportion of prey lost or stolen during provisioning, relative to the single-species colony. Provisioning adults suffered additional energetic costs in response to gull kleptoparasitism, requiring more attempts to deliver prey, taking longer to do so, and swallowing more prey (to the detriment of their offspring). Gulls also increased the duration of tern vulnerability to kleptoparasitism, because they continued to steal food from adults and chicks after precocial chicks left the nest, when intraspecific kleptoparasitism is negligible. Terns breeding in a mixed colony therefore suffer direct and indirect costs through decreased provisioning and increased provisioning effort, which may ultimately impact reproductive success, resulting in colony decline where kleptoparasitism is frequent. This study illustrates how forming a mixed-species seabird breeding assemblage has costs as well as benefits, potentially fluctuating between a parasitic and a mutualistic relationship.
Data from: Colony and individual life-history responses to temperature in a social insect pollinator
1. Pollinating insects are of major ecological and commercial importance, yet they may be facing ecological disruption from a changing climate. Despite this threat, few studies have investigated the life-history responses of pollinators to experimentally controlled changes in temperature, which should be especially informative for species with complex life histories such as eusocial insects. 2. This study uses the key pollinator Bombus terrestris, a eusocial bumblebee with an annual colony cycle, to determine how temperature affects life-history traits at both individual and colony levels. 3. In two laboratory experiments, we reared B. terrestris colonies at either 20 or 25 °C, and measured differences in a set of life-history traits including colony longevity, queen longevity, worker longevity, production of workers, production of sexuals (queen and male production) and growth schedule, as well as effects on thermoregulatory behaviours. 4. Higher rearing temperature had a significant positive effect on colony longevity in one of the two experiments but no significant effects on queen or worker longevity. Higher rearing temperature significantly increased colony size but did not affect the timing of peak colony size. It was also associated with significantly higher queen production but had no effect on the production of workers or males or the timing of male production. Higher temperature colonies exhibited significantly more wing fanning by workers and significantly less wax canopy construction. Hence, an increase in rearing temperature of a few degrees increased colony longevity, colony size and queen production. However, individual longevity was not affected and so may have been buffered by changes in costly thermoregulatory behaviours. 5. We conclude that eusocial insects may show complex phenotypic responses to projected temperature increases under climate change, including effects on productivity and reproduction at the colony level. Such effects should be considered when predicting the impact of climate change on the provision of essential pollination services.
Data from: Putting the waste out: a proposed mechanism for transmission of the mycoparasite Escovopsis between leafcutter ant colonies
The attine ant system is a remarkable example of symbiosis. An antagonistic partner within this system is the fungal parasite <i>Escovopsis, </i>a genus specific to the fungal gardens of the Attini. <i>Escovopsis </i>parasitizes the <i>Leucoagaricus </i>symbiont that leaf-cutting ants (<i>Acromyrmex</i>, <i>Atta</i>) have been farming over the past 8-12 million years. However, it has been a puzzle how <i>Escovopsis </i>reaches its host. During a seasonal survey of nests of <i>Acromyrmex subterraneus subterraneus </i>in Atlantic rainforest in Brazil, <i>Escovopsis </i>was detected in all the sampled fungal garden waste tips or middens (n = 111). Middens were built strategically; always below the nest entrances. Here, we report the first evidence of a putative mechanism for horizontal transmission of <i>Escovopsis </i>between attine colonies. It is posited that leaf-cutting ants pick up the spores from soil and litter during foraging and vector the mycoparasite between attine colonies. Field and laboratory experiments, using <i>Atta laevigata</i> and <i>Acromyrmex subterraneus subterraneus</i>, confirm that <i>Escovopsis </i>spores are phoretic, and have an in-built dormancy, broken by the presence of their <i>Leucoagaricus </i>host. However, in the coevolutionary arms race, <i>Atta </i>ants may lose out – despite most species in the genus investing in a more advanced waste disposal system – due to the insanitary habits of their <i>Acromyrmex</i> neighbours.
Data from: Queen presence mediates the relationship between collective behavior and disease susceptibility in ant colonies
The success of social living can be explained, in part, by a group's ability to execute collective behaviors unachievable by solitary individuals. However, groups vary in their ability to execute these complex behaviors, often because they vary in their phenotypic composition. Group membership changes over time due to mortality or emigration, potentially leaving groups vulnerable to ecological challenges in times of flux. In some societies, the loss of important individuals (e.g., leaders, elites, queens) may have an especially detrimental effect on groups' ability to deal with these challenges. Here, we test whether the removal of queens in colonies of the acorn ant Temnothorax curvispinosus alters their ability to execute important collective behaviors and survive outbreaks of a generalist entomopathogen. We employed a split-colony design where one half of a colony was maintained with its queen, while the other half was separated from the queen. We then tested these subcolonies' performance in a series of collective behavior assays and finally exposed colonies to the entomopathogenic fungus Metarhizium robertsii by exposing two individuals from the colony and then sealing them back into the nest. We found that queenright subcolonies outperformed their queenless counterparts in nearly all collective behaviors. Queenless subcolonies were also more vulnerable to mortality from disease. However, queenless groups that displayed more interactions with brood experienced greater survivorship, a trend not present in queenright subcolonies. Queenless subcolonies that engage in more brood interactions may have had more resources available to cope with two physiological challenges (ovarian development after queen loss and immune activation after pathogen exposure). Our results indicate that queen presence can play an integral role in colony behavior, survivorship, and their relationship. They also suggest that interactions between workers and brood are integral to colonies survival. Overall, a social group's history of social reorganization may have strong consequences on their collective behaviors and their vulnerability to disease outbreaks.
Data from: An experimental test of the relationship between yolk testosterone and the social environment in a colonial passerine
Maternal hormones can be transferred to offspring during prenatal development in response to the maternal social environment, and may adaptively alter offspring phenotype. For example, numerous avian studies show that aggressive competition with conspecifics tends to result in females allocating more testosterone to their egg yolks, and this may cause offspring to have more competitive phenotypes. However, deviations from this pattern of maternal testosterone allocation are found, largely in studies of colonial species, and have yet to be explained. Colonial species may have different life-history constraints causing different yolk testosterone allocation strategies in response to conspecific competition, but few studies have experimentally tested whether colonial species do indeed differ from that of solitary species. To test this, we collected eggs from zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata), a colonial species, in the presence and absence of conspecific intrusions. Females did not alter the concentration of testosterone deposited in eggs laid during intrusions despite becoming more aggressive. These results suggest that maternal effects are not characterized by a uniform response to the social environment, but rather need to be contextualized with life-history traits.
Data from: Lower bumblebee colony reproductive success in agricultural compared to urban environments
Urbanisation represents a rapidly growing driver of land-use change. While it is clear that urbanisation impacts species abundance and diversity, direct effects of urban land-use on animal reproductive success are rarely documented. Here we show that urban land-use is linked to long-term colony reproductive output in a key pollinator. We reared colonies from wild-caught bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) queens, placed them at sites characterised by varying degrees of urbanisation from inner city to rural farmland, and monitored the production of sexual offspring across the entire colony cycle. Our land-use cluster analysis identified three site categories, and this categorization was a strong predictor of colony performance. Crucially, colonies in the two clusters characterized by urban development produced more sexual offspring than those in the cluster dominated by agricultural land. These colonies also reached higher peak size, had more food stores, encountered fewer parasite invasions and survived for longer. Our results show a link between urbanisation and bumblebee colony reproductive success, supporting the theory that urban areas provide a refuge for pollinator populations in an otherwise barren agricultural landscape.
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Allen Brain Atlas
Allen Brain Atlas is an Allen Institute collection of brain map atlases, datasets, APIs, and analysis tools covering mouse, human, and non-human primate brain resources.
Annotated Behaviour and Observability Dataset (ABODe)
ABODe is a University of Edinburgh DataShare dataset for behavior classification in group-housed mice using home-cage video, identities, bounding boxes, ground-plate positions, and annotator labels.
DANDI Archive for NWB datasets
DANDI is a BRAIN Initiative archive for publishing and sharing neurophysiology data, including electrophysiology, optophysiology, and behavioral data packaged as NWB and related standards.
International Brain Laboratory public data
The International Brain Laboratory public data releases expose standardized mouse decision-making experiments, including Neuropixels recordings, widefield calcium imaging, behavior, and session metadata accessed through the ONE API.
OpenNeuro
OpenNeuro is a free, open platform for sharing neuroimaging datasets, with public search, dataset pages, and download paths for web, S3, DataLad, and the OpenNeuro CLI.