These data are supplementary to a study entitled: "Allometric scaling of metabolism is linked to colony aggressiveness in ants".  These data describe metabolic rates and behavior (aggressiveness) in ant colonies across size. The majority of scaling relationships are established on solitary organisms, but metabolism also scales allometrically with colony size in eusocial insect societies. One possible parameter that may affect metabolism in social insect colonies, is a colony’s collective behavioral phenotype. These data were collected to assess metabolic scaling relationships in whole ant colonies and relate their metabolic performance to between-colony differences in collective aggressiveness. Specifically, the data were used to determine metabolic scaling relationships in aggressive and docile ant colonies, and estimate the size-independent multi-trait metabolic costs of collective aggressiveness.

We repeatedly measured intraspecific variation in collective aggression towards staged intruders in acorn ant colonies (Temnothorax curvispinosus Mayr 1866) and a suite of colony metabolic traits: minimum (VCO₂min) and routine (VCO₂avg) metabolic rates, their metabolic response to handling stress (VCO₂peak), their ability to recover to routine state (Recovery Rate, Costs, and Time). The uploaded data include conceptual figure of the study design, data collection, and an additional description. 

Briefly, metabolic rates of intact colonies were estimated using stop-flow respirometry (Lighton, John RB. Measuring metabolic rates: a manual for scientists. Oxford University Press, 2018.). The raw measures of CO₂ (ppm) produced by each colony were converted to CO₂ (mL) using the transformation and macro utility tools in Expedata v.1.1.18 (SSI). To measure aggressiveness in T. curvispinosus, a previously euthenized intruder T. longispinosus worker was inserted into the colony nest entrance, while the nest was observed via a dissecting microscope. Then the number of aggressive interactions against the intruder were recorded, which were defined as any of the following four behaviors: mandible-spreading, biting, stinging, or dragging.