Toledo, Antônio Marcos Oliveira http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0999-8474
Zimerer, Arthur http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1680-5412
Lopes, Juliane Floriano Santos http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7481-3109
Funding for this research was provided by:
CAPES (This study was financed in part by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - Brasil (CAPES) - Finance Code 001)
Article History
Received: 16 May 2023
Accepted: 28 February 2024
First Online: 8 March 2024
Declarations
:
: Ant workers perform a specific task at different levels of activity, but it is unclear if High Activity workers are more efficient and how they differ from Low Activity workers. Here we investigated if workers of these categories showed differences in efficiency and if they were also different regarding their teeth morphometry, body mass components, or metabolism. We found that High Activity workers are more efficient, have lower delays, and respond earlier to tasks than Low Activity workers, and this difference is not explained by teeth morphometry or body mass components, however, the mass scaling metabolic rate is lower in Non-transporters than in other worker categories. The higher efficiency of High Activity workers may be related to a reinforcement mechanism that lowers their response threshold.
: The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.
: This study was financed in part by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES), Brazil, Finance Code 001 to A.M.O.T. The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.