African birds as army ant followers

Craig, Adrian J. F.

doi:10.1007/s10336-022-01987-0

Cited by 2 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 62 publications

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“…land, swarm-raiding ants of the Afrotropical genus Dorylus in Africa and the Neotropical species Eciton burchellii and Labidus praedatorwere associated with nearly 500 different attendant bird species in our study. Our findings are consistent with previous reviews of ant-following behaviour in both Afrotropical(Craig, 2022) and Neotropical(Martínez et al, 2021) birds and reinforce the ecological importance of ants(Schultheiss et al, 2022), and swarm-raiding ants in particular, as highly important species in tropical terrestrial systems (Pérez-Espona, 2021). Our results are especially concerning due to the high sensitivity of swarm-raiding ants to global change such as forest fragmentation(Kumar & O'Donnell, 2007;Peters et al, 2008) and climate change…”

supporting

confidence: 92%

“…Prominent examples of disturbance foraging associations include ant‐following birds accompanying swarm‐raiding army ants ( Eciton burchellii ) and driver ants ( Dorylus spp.) on their foraging raids across tropical forests (reviewed in Martínez et al., 2021, Craig, 2022), diverse taxa foraging with troops of primates (reviewed in Heymann & Hsia, 2015) and hundreds or even thousands of individuals of multiple seabird species foraging in association with cetaceans and predatory fish at schools of prey fish (Veit & Harrison, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Schemske et al., 2009). Disturbance foraging interactions may revolve around highly specialized species that provide frequent or high‐intensity disturbances like swarm‐raiding ants (Craig, 2022; Martínez et al., 2021). The behaviour may occur across diverse taxa, or alternatively be phylogenetically conserved within specific clades.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Following the feeder: A global synthesis of disturbance‐based foraging associations of birds

Dominguez,

Hauber,

Tarwater

et al. 2023

Journal of Animal Ecology

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Species interactions link animal behaviour to community structure and macroecological patterns of biodiversity. One common type of trophic species interaction is disturbance foraging—the act of obtaining food at a disturbance created by another organism. Disturbance foraging is widespread across the animal kingdom, especially among birds, yet previous research has been largely anecdotal and we still lack a synthetic understanding of how this behaviour varies geographically, phylogenetically and ecologically. To address these gaps, we conducted a comprehensive literature review to test focal hypotheses about disturbance foraging behaviour in birds. We found that avian disturbance foraging was geographically ubiquitous, occurring in both aquatic and terrestrial habitats across six continents and four oceans. Consistent with predictions based on established species diversity gradients in different habitat types, the majority of terrestrial observations occurred at tropical latitudes, whereas aquatic observations took place most frequently in temperate marine waters. Although disturbance foraging was widespread across the avian phylogeny, contrary to our prediction, the behaviour was also conserved phylogenetically (Pagel's λ = 0.7) and clustered within suboscine landbirds in terrestrial environments and seabirds in aquatic environments. Similarly, although disturbers were taxonomically diverse as we predicted, interactions were unexpectedly dominated by swarm‐raiding ants in terrestrial environments and cetaceans in aquatic environments. Diet and body mass were also important predictors of disturbance foraging associations: Responders followed disturbers with similar diets and larger body sizes. Overall, our hypothesis‐testing framework provides insight into the importance of geography, phylogeny and ecology as predictors of disturbance foraging behaviour. We anticipate that this comprehensive assessment of disturbance foraging will serve to generate additional hypotheses and spark future research and management considerations about this fascinating but poorly studied suite of species interactions, especially as biotic interactions face unprecedented risks in our rapidly changing world.

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confidence: 92%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Following the feeder: A global synthesis of disturbance‐based foraging associations of birds

Dominguez,

Hauber,

Tarwater

et al. 2023

Journal of Animal Ecology

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Ant-following behavior is correlated with plumage traits in African understory birds

Waltert,

Klug,

Motombi

et al. 2024

Sci Nat

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Ant-following behavior is a common phenomenon in birds of Neotropical and Afrotropical rainforests but yet little is known from Central Africa. We here report on the phenomenon in lowland rainforest in Cameroon, quantifying the strength of the interaction of different ant-following bird species with driver ants and test the hypothesis that higher levels of specialization in ant-following behavior are associated with dominance or aggression-dependent plumage and other morphological traits. Flock size varied between 1 and 11 individuals with a mean size of 5.34 ± 2.68 (mean ± SD) individuals occurring at the same time. The maximum number of species present during one raid observed was ten, whereas the minimum number was four with an overall species richness of 6.89 ± 2.1 species. The 21 attending bird species strongly varied in the degree of ant-following behavior. In an interspecific comparison, plumage traits such as the presence of a colored crown, eyespots, and bare skin around the eye, in combination with metatarsus length and weight, were significantly correlated with ant-following behavior. These results suggest that—in size and identity of species—ant-following bird assemblages in Central Africa are similar to those reported from East Africa. They also suggest that ant following favors the selection of traits that signal dominance in interactions between individuals struggling for valuable food resources in the forest understory.

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African birds as army ant followers

Cited by 2 publications

References 62 publications

Following the feeder: A global synthesis of disturbance‐based foraging associations of birds

Following the feeder: A global synthesis of disturbance‐based foraging associations of birds

Ant-following behavior is correlated with plumage traits in African understory birds

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