ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We would like to thank D. Ott for fruitful discussions on insect
nutrition and stoichiometry, and T. Czaczkes for valuable insights on
colony housing and maintenance. We are grateful to J. Gadau, K-H. Knorr
and T. Schmidt for kindly providing materials to YG. Preliminary colony
growth data for L. neoniger was collected by B. Crawley and M.
Saleh. Additionally, M. Bailey, I. Barrera Lopez, D. Neumeister, E.
Nicholson, S. Pant, E. Perkins, S. Slavinskas, A. Serna and M. Zenker
all helped with this study through ant care and data collection.
Author contributions: CRS and YG designed the experiment. YG,
TP, AAW and HM collected the data. YG, CRS and CS analysed the data. YG
and CRS wrote the manuscript, which was revised and approved by all of
the authors.