Cassill Deby
Department of ESP-Biology, University of South Florida St. Petersburg, 140 7th Ave. S., St. Petersburg, FL, 33701-5016, USA.
Oecologia. 2002 Jun;132(1):150-158. doi: 10.1007/s00442-002-0928-2. Epub 2002 Jun 1.
In 1978, Oster and Wilson proposed a bang-bang 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.
1978年，奥斯特和威尔逊为群居昆虫提出了一种砰砰投资策略，即成熟时的蚁群规模会放大蚁群的繁殖能力。在本文中，将火红蚁单蚁后形态的投资策略与砰砰模型的预测进行了比较。1985年至1988年期间每月对挖掘出的火红蚁蚁丘进行人口普查数据收集，结果显示蚁群繁殖与蚁群规模（约50,000至约250,000只工蚁）无关。为什么成熟的火红蚁蚁群比繁殖一批年度有性后代所需规模大五倍呢？为解决这个问题，奥斯特和威尔逊的砰砰模型被修改为多年生社群的“溜溜球-砰砰”投资策略。在溜溜球-砰砰模型中，多余的工蚁是一种可支配储备——一种缓冲——它可以根据资源可用性上下波动，而不会对年度繁殖周期产生不利影响。溜溜球-砰砰模型将蚁群规模、蚁群生存和终身繁殖适应性联系起来。
