Data from: Allometric scaling of metabolism, growth, and activity in whole colonies of the seed harvester ant, Pogonomyrmex californicus

The negative allometric scaling of metabolic rate with body size is among
the most striking patterns in biology. We investigated whether this
pattern extends to physically independent eusocial systems by measuring
the metabolic rates of whole functioning colonies of the seed‐harvester
ant Pogonomyrmex californicus. These intraspecific scaling data were
compared to the predictions of an additive model developed to estimate
collective metabolic rates. Contrary to the prediction of the additive
model, colony metabolic rate allometry resembled the pattern commonly
observed interspecifically for individual organisms, scaling with colony
mass0.75. Among the same‐aged colonies, net growth rate varied by up to
sevenfold, with larger colonies exhibiting higher net growth efficiency
than smaller colonies. Isolated worker groups exhibited isometric
metabolic rate scaling, suggesting that the social environment of the
colony is critical to regulating individual patterns of work output.
Within the social environment, individual worker locomotor velocities
exhibited power‐law distributions that scaled with colony size so that
larger colonies exhibited a greater disparity between active and inactive
ants than did smaller colonies. These results demonstrate that behavioral
organization within colonies may have a major influence on colony‐level
metabolism and in generating intraspecific variation in growth
trajectories.