::Biozentrum Universitaet Wuerzburg: People::

Research interests:
Due to their impressive diversity, social insects offer the opportunity to analyze comparatively both the mechanisms underlying individual behavioral responses, as well as the ecological and evolutionary consequences of a given set of behavioral strategies. Workers of a social insect colony are integrated in subtle ways into their society. As a result, individual activities, even in isolation from other workers and at a distance from the nest, are not independent of the state of the colony itself. My studies on ant (and honey bee) societies are aimed, in a broad sense, to analyze this link between worker behavior and colony function, and to understand how individuals work together to form a higher-level entity. They combine an interest in the mechanisms controlling insect behavior and in its evolutionary consequences, and are also aimed to show how the organization of a complex social system can be analyzed by combining experimentation at the mechanistic and functional levels.

After earning a PhD in zoology from the University of Buenos Aires (Argentina), I worked as a posdoc at the University of Erlangen (Germany), and finally moved to the University of Würzburg. The current research projects in my group, strongly biased to ant societies as a model system, can be summarized in three main topics, which are briefly outlined below. In all of them, an effort is made to link the arguments of modern evolutionary ecology with the more mechanistic approaches of the behavioral physiology, combining lab and field work.

One main research topic deals with the behavioral ecology in foraging behavior of leaf-cutting ants, addressing aspects related to communication, energetics and foraging efficiency. The second one concentrates on building behavior and the control of nest climate in ants, emphasizing the temporal organization of individual and colony responses to environmental factors. The third research topic focuses on the mechanisms controlling food intake and foraging strategies in nectar-feeding insects, ants and honey bees.

Herz H, Hölldobler B, Roces F (2008) Delayed rejection in a leaf-cutting ant after foraging on plants unsuitable for the symbiotic fungus

Selected publications

(for the complete publication list please visit the PUBLICATION section on the horizontal menue)

Herz H, Hölldobler B, Roces F (2008) Delayed rejection in a leaf-cutting ant after foraging on plants unsuitable for the symbiotic fungus. Behavioral Ecology 19:575-582

Bollazzi M, Kronenbitter J, Roces F (2008) Soil temperature, digging behaviour, and the adaptive value of nest depth in South American species of Acromyrmex leaf-cutting ants. Oecologia 158:165-175

Kleineidam C, Ruchty M, Casero-Montes Z, Roces F (2007) Thermal radiation as a learned orientation cue in leaf-cutting ants (Atta vollenweideri). Journal of Insect Physiology 53:478-487

Schilman PE, Roces F (2006) Foraging energetics of a nectar-feeding ant: metabolic expenditure as a function of food-source profitability. Journal of Experimental Biology 209:4091-4101

Röschard J, Roces F (2003) Fragment-size determination and size-matching in the grass-cutting ant Atta vollenweideri depend on the distance from the nest. Journal of Tropical Ecology 19:647-653

Schilman PE, Roces F (2003) Assessment of nectar flow rate and memory for patch quality in the ant Camponotus rufipes. Animal Behaviour 66:687-693

Paul J, Roces F (2003) Fluid intake rates in ants correlate with their feeding habits. Journal of Insect Physiology 49:347-357

Röschard J, Roces F (2003) Cutters, carriers and transport chains: distance-dependent foraging strategies in the grass-cutting ant Atta vollenweideri. Insectes Sociaux 50:237-244

Roces F (2002) Individual complexity and self-organization in foraging by leaf-cutting ants. Biological Bulletin 202:306-313

Kleineidam C, Ernst R, Roces F (2001) Wind-induced ventilation in the giant nests of the leaf-cutting ant Atta vollenweideri. Naturwissenschaften 88:301-305

Blatt J, Roces F (2001) Haemolymph sugar levels in foraging honeybees (Apis mellifera carnica): dependence on metabolic rate and in vivo measurement of maximal rates of trehalose synthesis. Journal of Experimental Biology 204:2709-2716

Roces F, Hölldobler B (1996) Use of stridulation in foraging leaf-cutting ants: mechanical support during cutting or short-range recruitment signal? Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 39:293-299 (commented in Science News)

Roces F, Lighton JRB (1995) Larger bites of leaf-cutting ants. Nature 373:392-393

Tautz J, Roces F, Hölldobler B (1995) Use of a sound-based vibratome by leaf-cutting ants. Science 267:84-87

Roces F, Núñez JA (1995) Thermal sensitivity during brood care in workers of two Camponotus ant species: circadian variation and its ecological correlates. Journal of Insect Physiology 41:659-669

Roces F, Núñez JA (1993) Information about food quality influences load-size selection in recruited leaf-cutting ants. Animal Behaviour 45:135-143