DOI: 10.5061/dryad.w3r2280zn
title: The significance of social interactions in synchronized swarming flight in a termite

description: In social insects, individuals of working caste coordinate their actions
 to manage various collective tasks. Such collective behaviors exist not
 only in workers but also in winged reproductives (alates). During certain
 seasons, newly emerged alates fly from the nest to disperse and find
 mating partners in a synchronized manner. This "swarming"
 behavior is one of the collective behaviors that involve the greatest
 number of individuals in social insects. However, such synchronization is
 considered to be caused by the response to specific environmental cues
 rather than behavioral coordination among colony members. Here, we show
 that a termite Reticulitermes kanmonensis shows synchronized dispersal
 flight among alates within the same colony even under the constant
 temperature environment. Under the semi-field environment with fluctuating
 temperatures, alates within the same colony synchronized their dispersal
 flight under higher temperatures, while flight was suppressed under lower
 temperatures. We observed that termites synchronized their dispersal
 flights even under constant temperature conditions in the laboratory
 (20°C), indicating that environmental cues are not always necessary for
 synchronization. In either case, higher synchronization happened with a
 larger number of alates. These results suggest that social factors
 interplay with environmental cues to enable the synchronized swarming
 flight of social insects.
description: # The significance of social interactions in synchronized swarming flight
 in a termite ## General Information This repository provides access to the
 data and source code used for the associated manuscript. This study
 proposes that synchronized termite swarming results from collective
 decision-making within a group of alates. We observed the swarming
 behavior in *Reticulitermes kanmonensis* under both semi-natural and
 laboratory conditions to confirm 1) termites suppress minor dispersal
 flights under lower temperatures, 2) they can synchronize flight even
 without environmental cues, 3) group size facilitates swarming. This
 includes data obtained from empirical observations and R scripts to
 analyze them. Authors: Nobuaki Mizumoto and Tomonari Nozaki Contact,
 Nobuaki Mizumoto: [nzm0095@auburn.edu](mailto:nzm0095@auburn.edu) ## Table
 of Contents * README * scripts * output.R - output all plots and
 statistical analysis of empirical works * output - all outputs are stored
 * data * raw - raw data in .csv * **colony_foundation.csv** - data for
 colony foundation experiments. * id: unique number of each colony
 foundation pair * treat: wood (collected directly from the wood),
 lab_flight (collected after the flight under lab conditions), nat_flight
 (collected after the flight under semi-natural conditions) * colony:
 original colony * rep: replicate within each colony * case: methods for
 colony foundation * foundation: success (1) or not (0) * unit: surviving
 reproductive combinations * offspring: total number of offspring without
 eggs (unitless) * worker: number of workers (unitless) * larva: number of
 larvae (unitless) * PS: number of pre-soldiers (unitless) * eggs: number
 of eggs (unitless) * total: total number of offspring including eggs
 (unitless) * **hybrid_foundation.csv** - data for hybrid colony foundation
 experiments. * unit: a combination of species * id: unique number of each
 colony foundation pair * foundation: success (1) or not (0) * unit
 res: surviving reproductive combinations * offspring: total number of
 offspring without eggs (unitless) * eggs: number of eggs (unitless) *
 total: total number of offspring including eggs (unitless) *
 **lab_swarm.csv** - data for swarming experiments under the constant lab
 environments. * day: observational date * colony: colony * rep: replicates
 within the colony * temp_treat: temperature (Celsius) * ID: unique ID of
 each experimental setup * alates: the number of dispersed alates
 (unitless) * female: the number of dispersed female alates (unitless) *
 male: the number of dispersed male alates (unitless) * cumulative:
 cumulative number of dispersed alates * ave_temp: average temperature of
 the day (Celsius) * max_temp: maximum temperature of the day (Celsius) *
 min_temp: minimum temperature of the day (Celsius) *
 **semifield_swarm.csv** - data for swarming experiments under semi-natural
 environments. * colony_id: unique id of each colony * day: observational
 date * alates: the number of dispersed alates (unitless) * female: the
 number of dispersed female alates (unitless) * male: the number of
 dispersed male alates (unitless) * unidentified: the number of dispersed
 alates with unidentified sex (unitless) * cumulative: cumulative number of
 dispersed alates * flight: there was a flight (1) or not (0) * end: if all
 alates dispersed (1) or not (0) * ave_temp: average temperature of the day
 (Celsius) * max_temp: maximum temperature of the day (Celsius) * min_temp:
 minimum temperature of the day (Celsius) ## Session information ``` R
 version 4.3.1 (2023-06-16 ucrt) Platform: x86_64-w64-mingw32/x64 (64-bit)
 Running under: Windows 11 x64 (build 22621) Matrix products: default
 locale: [1] LC_COLLATE=English_United States.utf8 [2]
 LC_CTYPE=English_United States.utf8 [3] LC_MONETARY=English_United
 States.utf8 [4] LC_NUMERIC=C [5] LC_TIME=English_United States.utf8 time
 zone: Asia/Tokyo tzcode source: internal attached base packages: [1] stats
 graphics grDevices utils datasets methods base other attached packages:
 [1] plyr_1.8.8 viridis_0.6.3 viridisLite_0.4.2 [4] ggplot2_3.4.2
 fitdistrplus_1.1-11 multcomp_1.4-25 [7] TH.data_1.1-2 survival_3.5-5
 mvtnorm_1.2-3 [10] lme4_1.1-34 Matrix_1.6-1 car_3.1-2 [13] carData_3.0-5
 MASS_7.3-60 ```