The use of mark-recapture to measure worker number in the rock nesting antspecies, Formica neorufibarbis Emery

I examined the use of a mark-recapture technique to measure colony size and colony growth in the ant species Formica neorufibarbis. I addressed three questions: 1) Is the method reasonably accurate?, 2) is the method precise? , and 3) how many workers does the method kill? I found that estimates of c olony sizes based on mark-recapture were similar to those estimated by colo ny excavation. The error in estimates of worker and cocoon number due to th e binomial nature of the mark-recapture method was relatively small, with a mean coefficient of variation of twelve percent for workers and nine perce nt for cocoons. I estimated that the method killed less than two percent of the workers in a nest.