Cleaning Up After a Meal: The Consequences of Prey Disposal for Pit‐Building Antlion Larvae

Beponis, Lucy M.; Ohl, Valérie-Anne; Ryan, Mitchell P.; Backwell, Patricia R. Y.; Binning, Sandra A.; Haff, Tonya M.

doi:10.1111/eth.12257

Cited by 9 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…This is important, because some studies refer to the cost of trap construction when explaining why TBA predators seldom relocate their traps (e.g. Scharf & Ovadia, 2006;Beponis et al, 2014); whereas the present study does not support such an explanation. When considering the rate of mass loss rather than the final mass after starvation, wormlions in the intermediate-disturbance level treatment lost mass at the fastest rate compared with the low and high disturbance treatments.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 78%

The effects of starvation and repeated disturbance on mass loss, pit construction, and spatial pattern in a trap‐building predator

Scharf

Dor

2015

Ecological Entomology

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1. Starvation tolerance is an important trait for animals, as most will encounter starvation within their lifetime. Sit‐and‐wait predators are better adapted to starvation owing to their naturally low encounter rate with prey. 2. Starvation tolerance was studied under three levels of disturbance of wormlion larvae, a strict sit‐and‐wait predator that constructs pits. 3. Frequently disturbed wormlions constructed pits less often, and larger individuals continued to construct pits more frequently than smaller ones. It was expected that a high disturbance level would lead to a high rate of mass loss, however, surprisingly, the rate of mass loss was not higher for the frequently disturbed group. This suggests that the energetic cost of pit construction and maintenance is not as high as previously suggested for other pit‐building predators. 4. Larger individuals tolerated starvation better, in losing a lower proportion of their initial body mass and having higher chances of survival throughout the experiment. 5. The effect of starvation on the distance to neighbours was also investigated, and starved individuals were expected to maximise this distance in order to avoid interference competition. However, wormlions were usually clumped, and starvation or feeding had no effect on the pits' spatial pattern, suggesting that interference competition plays a minor role in this species. 6. Generally, wormlion larvae demonstrated a high starvation tolerance and low mortality rates even after 9 weeks of starvation.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 78%

The effects of starvation and repeated disturbance on mass loss, pit construction, and spatial pattern in a trap‐building predator

Scharf

Dor

2015

Ecological Entomology

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“…Foraging ants are faced with a serious threat from co-occurring trap-building antlion larvae because these predators are highly specialized for capturing terrestrial invertebrates [ 1 ]. Some ant species have evolved means of avoiding antlion predation, i.e., avoiding areas where antlions form aggregations [ 2 ]. Nevertheless, in the event that an ant is captured by an antlion larva, nearby nestmates may exhibit risky rescue behaviour to save the captured ant from predation [ 3 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Moribund Ants Do Not Call for Help

Miler

2016

PLoS ONE

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When an antlion captures a foraging ant, the victim’s nestmates may display rescue behaviour. This study tested the hypothesis that the expression of rescue behaviour depends on the life expectancy of the captured ant. This hypothesis predicts that the expression of rescue behaviour will be less frequent when the captured ant has a lower life expectancy than when it has a higher life expectancy because such a response would be adaptive at the colony level. Indeed, significant differences were found in the frequency of rescue behaviours in response to antlion victims with differing life expectancies. In agreement with prediction, victims with lower life expectancies were rescued less frequently, and those rescues had a longer latency and shorter duration. There was also a qualitative difference in the behaviour of rescuers to victims from the low and high life expectancy groups. Several explanations for these findings are proposed.

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“…impact on larval performance (Griffiths, 1986;Lucas, 1985). Moreover, the chance of prey falling into a pit is reduced, while the larvae are doing pit maintenance, because the activity of expelling sand can warn of the presence of a trap before the prey can fall into it (Bar et al, 2022;Gotelli, 1996;Hollis, 2017). Second, shallower pits probably capture fewer prey because prey can escape easier from small than from large traps (Farji-Brener, 2003;Lomascolo & Farji-Brener, 2001;Scharf et al, 2011).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This sand‐throwing behaviour is also required after prey capture because movements of prey and larvae can cause small landslides that change the shape of the pit (Griffiths, 1980; Lomascolo & Farji‐Brener, 2001; Lucas, 1982). In addition to that, larvae also need to expel the carcasses of captured prey and debris that occasionally fall inside the trap to keep it in optimal condition (Beponis et al, 2014; Lucas, 1982). Our results strongly suggest that a leaf litter cover interferes with all of these maintenance activities because soil particles, prey carcasses and debris that the larva attempts to remove from the trap can bounce off the litter covering the trap and fall back into the pit.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why are antlion larvae rare under the leaf litter? Testing the hypothesis of improper trap maintenance

Farji‐Brener,

Carrillo‐Fajardo,

Rodríguez‐Malacara

et al. 2023

Ecological Entomology

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Understanding why animals avoid some locations is needed to improve the theory of habitat selection. This is key in semi‐sedentary organisms, such as antlion larvae, because once established they rarely move, and their performance largely depends on local environmental conditions. Antlion larvae are sit‐and‐wait predators that build conical pitfall traps in sandy soils to capture passing prey. They clean constantly their traps, expelling soil, prey carcasses and debris out of the pit to maintain their trapping success. Therefore, we propose that they avoid soils with leaf litter because leaves hinder the maintenance of their pits; a hypothesis that has not yet been tested. We first demonstrated that antlion larvae (Myrmeleon inmaculatus) are rare from soils with leaf litter in a tropical semi‐deciduous forest in Mexico. We then experimentally tested the effect of leaf litter on pit maintenance by adding debris in 90 antlion traps, 45 of which were covered with a leaf, and 45 remained uncovered. Two hours after adding the debris, we recorded its location and quantified the variation in depth and diameter of the pits. Larvae in uncovered traps were twice as effective at cleaning up the debris than larvae in covered traps. Furthermore, in just 2 h, covered traps were on average 21% shallower than control traps, probably because unsuccessful attempts to clean debris caused sand slides to fill the pit partially. Leaf litter seems to hinder the proper maintenance of antlion traps, explaining at least partially, why these animals are rare under leaf litter.

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Cleaning Up After a Meal: The Consequences of Prey Disposal for Pit‐Building Antlion Larvae

Cited by 9 publications

References 48 publications

The effects of starvation and repeated disturbance on mass loss, pit construction, and spatial pattern in a trap‐building predator

The effects of starvation and repeated disturbance on mass loss, pit construction, and spatial pattern in a trap‐building predator

Moribund Ants Do Not Call for Help

Why are antlion larvae rare under the leaf litter? Testing the hypothesis of improper trap maintenance

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