Data from: Day/night upper thermal limits differ within Ectatomma ruidum ant colonies

In the tropics, daily temperature fluctuations can pose physiological challenges for ectothermic organisms, and upper thermal limits may affect foraging activity over the course of the day. Variation in upper thermal limits can occur among and within species, and for social insects such as ants, within colonies. Within colonies, upper thermal limits may differ among individuals or change for an individual throughout the day. Daytime foragers of the Neotropical ant Ectatomma ruidum have higher critical thermal maxima (CTmax) than nocturnal foragers, but whether these differences occur among or within colonies was not previously known. We investigated the potential mechanisms accounting for day/night variation in CTmax of E. ruidum foragers by testing whether CTmax varied among or within colonies or due to individuals within colonies acclimating to changes in temperature over a short time scale (3 h). We found within- but not among-colony differences in CTmax on a diel cycle, and we found no evidence for among- or within-colony partitioning of foraging times by individual workers. Individuals did not acclimate to experimental manipulations of temperature, although additional experiments with more ecologically relevant temperature manipulations are needed to rule out this mechanism. In summary, we have shown that day/night differences in upper thermal limits can occur within ant colonies, but further investigation is needed to elucidate the mechanisms driving this variation.Weather DataHourly air temperature data from March 12-18, 2017, obtained from the La Selva station automated weather data collection: http://www.ots.ac.cr/meteoro/default.php?pestacion=2; accessed April 16, 2017.WeatherData.csvDay/Night CTmaxCritical thermal maxima of Ectatomma ruidum ant foragers collected either diurnally (from 1400-1430 h) or nocturnally (from 400-430 h) on March 14, 2017.DayNightCTmax.csvAnt Forager NumberThe number of ant foragers collected from each of 10 Ectatomma ruidum nests, both diurnally (from 1400-1430 h) and nocturnally (from 400-430 h) on March 14, 2017.AntForagerNumber.csvAcclimation TestCritical thermal maxima of Ectatomma ruidum ant foragers exposed to experimental manipulations of temperature (at 3, 25, or 33 degrees Celsius) for 3, 6, or 12 hours between March 16 and 18, 2017.AcclimationTest.csvR scriptR script used for all analyses reported in the paper.Nelson et al. 2017 R code.RREADMEREADME file describing all data files and the R script.Funding provided by: National Science FoundationCrossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100000001Award Number: OISE-1130156; DGE-132184