Bonavita-Cougourdan A, Morel L
Institut de Neurophysiologie et de Psychophysiologie, Département de Psychophysiologie comparée, C.N.R.S.-I.N.P.-7, 13402 Marseille Cedex 09 France.
Behav Processes. 1985 Nov;11(4):425-33. doi: 10.1016/0376-6357(85)90007-5.
Worker ants, which perform various tasks in their society (division of labour or polyethism), also demonstrate different types of antennal activity in trophallactic interactions. These differences concern the variability in successions of behavioural units performed by the worker in the course of substance transmission as well as in the sequential organization of these units. The antennal activity of an aged worker varies according to whether the ant gives food to another aged worker or to a callow worker. In the latter case, the donor's behaviour does not differ according to its social function (brood-tending worker or forager). A parallel can be established between these results and those obtained in a previous study of aggressive behaviour. This behaviour is liable to appear when a callow worker extracted from its society before hatching and therefore deprived of relations with aged workers of the society, is therefore placed with an aged worker. Polyethism is then manifested in social interactions, and not only in the division of labour between members of the society.
工蚁在蚁群中执行各种任务（劳动分工或多型行为），在交哺互动中也表现出不同类型的触角活动。这些差异涉及工蚁在物质传递过程中执行的行为单元序列的变异性，以及这些单元的顺序组织。老年工蚁的触角活动会因该工蚁是给另一只老年工蚁喂食还是给幼蚁喂食而有所不同。在后一种情况下，供体的行为不会因其社会功能（育幼工蚁或觅食工蚁）而有所不同。这些结果与之前一项关于攻击行为的研究结果之间可以建立起平行关系。当一只在孵化前从蚁群中取出、因此被剥夺了与蚁群中老龄工蚁关系的幼蚁与一只老龄工蚁放在一起时，这种行为很容易出现。多型行为随后在社会互动中表现出来，而不仅仅体现在蚁群成员之间的劳动分工上。
