Data from: Central place foraging and the long-term liability of selecting the ‘wrong’ central place

Shelter provided by a fixed refuge like a burrow or nest has obvious
advantages for central place foragers: the energy and time required to
construct the refuge is expected to be offset by improvements in survival
and reproduction. This assumes the refuge is positioned appropriately in
the environment to access food and other resources, and that the
environment itself remains stable over time. We investigated the long-term
liability of refuge placement and adverse environmental change on an
iconic central place forager, the Australian meat ant (Iridomyrmex
purpureus). We measured the consequences of nest location on the thermal
conditions experienced at the nest and how those conditions influenced the
opportunity to forage and defend the nest from predation. These data were
combined with direct field observations of foraging effort and changes in
nest size obtained from over a decade of study. Getting the location of a
nest wrong had a lasting impact on the growth of a nest and colonies were
unable to compensate for subsequent time restrictions on activity through
changes in behaviour. Our data suggests that central place foragers
relying on the long-term occupancy of a fixed refuge are especially
vulnerable to environmental change. Unless these species compensate
through changes in behaviour or construct a new central refuge in an area
outside of the zone of impact, the increasing frequency and severity of
environmental change occurring with the climate crisis could increase the
risk of local extinction.