SOCIAL ORGANIZATION IN LEPTOTHORAX ANTS: 
WITHIN- AND BETWEEN-SPECIES PATTERNS* 
By Joan M. Herbers 
Department of Zoology, University of Vermont 
Burlington, Vermont 05405 
Recent application of quantitative techniques to behavior (cf. 
Colgan 1978) has resulted in new approaches to undertanding social 
interactions among animals. A technique particularly widely-used 
for study of ant colonies is development of the colony ethogram, or 
behavioral profile. We now have ethogram information for a wide 
variety of species. Most reports in the literature focus on a single 
colony (Table 1); variation within a species is rarely discussed. In 
addition, the colony time budget, an important second class of 
information, is generally not reported (Table 1). The appropriate- 
ness of behavioral comparisons across species is thereby severely 
limited by availability of only one type of behavior frequency 
catalog, for only one colony per species. 
Caste complexity and division of labor related to morphological 
or age variation comprise another type of information contributing 
to an understanding of social organization. As a rule, queens have 
smaller repertoires than do workers; majors have different etho- 
grams than minors; and older workers display different behavior 
frequencies than do younger workers. Studies of morphology affect- 
ing behavior have concentrated on polymorphic species for which 
descrete worker castes can be distinquished; recent work has shown 
that, even for monomorphic species, worker size can bias behavior 
(Wilson 1978, Herbers and Cunningham 1983). 
A reasonably complete description of social organization for an 
ant species should treat ethograms, time budgets, and behavioral 
caste specialization, both within and between different colonies. 
Here I report such details for three colonies of Leptothorax atnbi- 
guus. This information is then compared to data from the closely- 
related L. longispinosus to arrive at an understanding of between- 
and within- species variation in social behavior. 
Manuscript received hy the editor July 22. 1983 
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