title: Behavioral Reversion and Dark-Light Choice Behavior in Workers of the Red Wood AntFormica polyctena.
abstract: Social insect workers usually start adult life from intranidal tasks and then switch to extranidal activities, but this process may be reversed: foragers may switch again to intranidal brood care. The transition forager - reverted nurse is known as the behavioral reversion. Ant foragers are known to avoid illuminated zones less strongly than intranidal workers, but illumination responses of reverted nurses were so far never investigated. We compared dark-light choice behavior of three classes of workers of the red wood antFormica polyctena: nurses, foragers and reverted nurses. Sets of ten ants belonging to the same class were tested in "double nests" made of two interconnected test tubes, one kept in darkness and the other exposed to light. The number of ants present in the illuminated zone of each nest (ni) was recorded on 10 sample points at 30 min intervals. The values of niwere lower in nurses than in foragers and reverted nurses and decreased as a function of time in all three groups. Nurses differed from foragers with respect to the dynamics of dark-light choice behavior, but reverted nurses did not differ in that respect either from nurses, or from foragers. Reverted nurses and foragers did not differ significantly from each other with respect to the overall level of avoidance of illuminated zone, nor with respect to the dynamics of dark-light choice behavior. This implies that behavioral reversion is not accompanied by the return of illumination responses of workers ofF. polyctenato the state characteristic for nurses.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurophysiology Laboratory of Ethology, Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, Pasteur St 3, 02-093 Warsaw, Poland.
authors.forename: Beata
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Symonowicz
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurophysiology Laboratory of Ethology, Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, Pasteur St 3, 02-093 Warsaw, Poland.
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kieruzel
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurophysiology Laboratory of Ethology, Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, Pasteur St 3, 02-093 Warsaw, Poland.
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Szczuka
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurophysiology Laboratory of Ethology, Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, Pasteur St 3, 02-093 Warsaw, Poland.
authors.forename: Julita
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Korczyńska
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurophysiology Laboratory of Ethology, Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, Pasteur St 3, 02-093 Warsaw, Poland.
authors.forename: Andrzej
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Wnuk
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurophysiology Laboratory of Ethology, Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, Pasteur St 3, 02-093 Warsaw, Poland ; College of Inter-Faculty Individual Studies in Mathematics and Natural Sciences, University of Warsaw, Żwirki i Wigury St. 93, 02-089 Warsaw, Poland.
authors.forename: Paweł Jarosław
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Mazurkiewicz
authors.affiliation: College of Inter-Faculty Individual Studies in Mathematics and Natural Sciences, University of Warsaw, Żwirki i Wigury St. 93, 02-089 Warsaw, Poland.
authors.forename: Michał
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Chiliński
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurophysiology Laboratory of Ethology, Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, Pasteur St 3, 02-093 Warsaw, Poland.
authors.forename: Ewa Joanna
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Godzińska
keywords: Behavioral reversion; Formica polyctena; dark–light choice; forager; nurse; reverted nurse