DOI: 10.5061/dryad.ffbg79cr2
title: Limited dispersal and an unexpected aggression pattern in a native supercolonial ant

description: Understanding how social groups function requires studies on how
 individuals move across the landscape and interact with each other. Ant
 supercolonies are extreme cooperative units that may consist of thousands
 of interconnected nests, and their individuals cooperate over large
 spatial scales. However, the inner structure of suggested supercolonial
 (or unicolonial) societies has rarely been extensively studied using both
 genetic and behavioral analyses. We describe a dense supercolony-like
 aggregation of more than 1300 nests of the ant Formica (Coptoformica)
 pressilabris. We performed aggression assays and found that, while
 aggression levels were generally low, there was some aggression within the
 assumed supercolony. The occurrence of aggression increased with distance
 from the focal nest, in accordance with the genetically viscous population
 structure we observe by using 10 DNA microsatellite markers. However, the
 aggressive interactions do not follow any clear pattern that would allow
 specifying colony borders within the area. The genetic data indicate
 limited gene flow within and away from the supercolony. Our results show
 that a Formica supercolony is not necessarily a single unit but can be a
 more fluid mosaic of aggressive and amicable interactions instead,
 highlighting the need to study internest interactions in detail when
 describing supercolonies.
description: See article.
description: <strong>Microsatellite data </strong><br>
 (”microsatellite data.txt” and ”microsatellite data Särkkilen 4
 parts.txt”) The microsatellite data is given in the
 Genepop format. Subpopulation abbreviations: LG = Lillgård; Sar =
 Särkkilen; SG = Storgård; SS = Storsand. Separate files are given for the
 supercolony site (Särkkilen) as one population, and divided into its four
 parts (SarI, SarII, SarIII, and SarIV).
 <strong>Coordinates</strong><br>
 (coordinates.csv) Coordinates for all
 nests.<strong> </strong>Coordinate system: EPSG: 4326, WGS
 84. <strong>Behavioral
 data</strong><br> (behavioral_data.csv)
 <strong>Column explanations</strong><br>
 <strong>video:</strong> identifier of video file<br>
 <strong>host:</strong> nest id of the nest with 15 workers,
 the reactions of which were recorded.<br>
 <strong>host_part:</strong> the part (I–IV) of the supercolony
 site that the host nest belongs to<br>
 <strong>guest:</strong> nest id of the introduced
 worker<br> <strong>guest_part:</strong> the part of the
 supercolony site that the guest nest belongs to.<br>
 <strong>treatment:</strong> see article for descriptions of
 treatment classes.<br> <strong>timeinsight:</strong> the
 total time (milliseconds out of 120 000) that the introduced ant was in
 sight and not e.g. under nest material<br> <strong>trotime:
 </strong>trophallaxis time (milliseconds)<br>
 <strong>aggrtime:</strong> aggressive time
 (milliseconds)<br> <strong>anttime:</strong> antennation
 time (milliseconds)<br> <strong>dist: </strong>internest
 distance (km) The reactions toward the introduced ant
 were recorded for one minute, but as the videos were watched at half
 speed, we scored behaviors for two minutes, and the total time for each
 replicate is thus two minutes (120 000 milliseconds) in the
 data.