Ants are highly successful dominating invertebrate ecosystems in many part of the world. Key to their success is their sociality. This allows them to work collectively to perform extraordinary behaviours and build extraordinary structures. A little-known aspect of ant nesting behaviour is polydomy. In a polydomous colony a single ant colony inhabits inhabits several spatially separated, but socially connected nests. This stratergy is common in ants, espcially in many ecologically dominant and invasive species. I studied this behaviour in the red wood ant  Formica lugubris.  Using a variety of methods we have attempted to understand how this system is organised, specifically focusing on how resources are redistributed through this complex system. The methods we use include: network analysis, individual marking, Radio-Frequency IDentification (RFID) tagging, fat analysis and  trail/nest observations.

This project was part of my PhD which was based at the University of York supervised by Dr Elva Robinson

Photo Credit: Duncan Procter

Selected relevant publications

Lecheval V, Larson H, Burns D, Ellis S, et al (in press) From foraging trails to transport networks: how the quality-distance trade-off shapes network structure. Proceedings of the Royal Society B

​​Ellis S, Franks D.W, Robinson E.J.H (2017) Ecological consequences of colony structure in dynamic ant nest networks. Ecology and Evolution. 7(4) pp 1170-1180.

Ellis S, Procter D.S, Buckham-Bonnett P, Robinson E.J.H (2017) Inferring polydomy: a review of functional, spatial and genetic methods for identifying colony boundaries. Insectes Sociaux.  61(1) pp 19-37.

Ellis S., Robinson E.J.H. (2014) Polydomy in Red Wood Ants. Insectes Sociaux. 61(2), pp. 111-112. doi: 10.1007/s00040-013-0337-z.