These contexts can have a social dimension in social insects. Influences of the preimaginal environment on adult behaviour have been demonstrated as early as the late 1930's in Drosophila, and were later documented and shown to be involved in various contexts in many other species (see review in ). For instance, in monkeys and humans, Harlow & Harlow and Bowlby noted the importance of attachment during the early phase after birth for the development of adult behaviour.ĭespite a much simpler brain structure, insects display similarly pronounced plastic responses to the early environment. Imprinting is only a special case of the processes by which early experience affects subsequent adult behaviour. Lorenz was the first to conceptualize the imprinting process and gave one of the most striking examples: during the few minutes after hatching, young birds developed an attachment to their parents if present, or a parental surrogate, such as Lorenz himself. The best example is imprinting, a process by which the individual develops an irreversible reference pattern from a stimulus present during a short period of time during its development. The early stages of an animal's life constitute a critical period during which the environment can have dramatic and sometimes irreversible effects on adult behaviour. This might help to explain why this species is never used by social parasites. parvulus is less influenced by the early environment. unifasciatus and can account for the successful enslavement of this species. Our findings show that early experience influences nestmate discrimination in the ant T. Allogrooming activity might be very important for the slave-makers because they are tended by their slaves. parvulus workers allogroomed conspecific nestmates less than T. muellerianus workers, this was not the case when exposed early to M. parvulus gave a less clear result: while workers behaved more aggressively towards their sisters when exposed early to C. unifasciatus was exposed to slave-makers for 10 days following emergence, they were more aggressive towards their own sisters and groomed the slave-maker more. parvulus, were allowed to emerge in the presence of workers of one of two slave-maker species, Chalepoxenus muellerianus or Myrmoxenus ravouxi. Pupae of a host species, Temnothorax unifasciatus, and a non-host species, T. We tested the hypothesis that early experience allows the deception of commonly enslaved species, while non-host species use a different mechanism, which does not involve learning. After emerging in the slave-maker nest, slave workers work as if they were in their own colony. Slave-making ants are social parasites that capture brood of other ant species to increase the worker force of their colony.
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In some species, this odour is learned during the first days following emergence, and thus early experience has a strong influence on nestmate discrimination. Ants use the odour of the colony to discriminate nestmates.