Coexistence and Competitive Displacement Involving Two Native Ant Species (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

A behavioural study of transporter workers inCataglyphis ibericaant colonies (Hymenoptera Formicidae)

“…In this species, adult transport is a usual phenomenon that is not correlated with any of the factors that CERDA (1989) analysed at daily (daily foraging activity, environmental factors) and seasonal levels (seasonal foraging activity, number of larvae, number of nests in the colony). In fact, some authors have suggested that the interchange of workers between nests of polycalic colonies could have an important random component that would make social carrying a stochastic process depending on the individual idiosyncracy of transporters (SCHERBA 1964, MACKAY & MACKAY 1983.…”

Interference interactions and nest usurpation between two subordinate ant species

“…In the majority of cases cited in the literature (but see Czechowski 1985;Heinze and Lipski 1990), nest invaders are very aggressive, dominant ants in their habitats, which attack and destroy the nests of less aggressive, subordinate species under a variety of conditions (Wilson 1976;LaMon and Topo 1981;MacKay and MacKay 1982;Droual 1983Droual , 1984. Nevertheless, this study shows that this kind of interference interaction is also found between subordinate, apparently nonaggressive species.…”

“…Both in the laboratory and in the ®eld, the most frequent outcome of these aggressive interactions is the occupation of the C. iberica nest by C. foreli. In ants, interspeci®c nest occupation, after extermination of the original nest population, generally takes place by direct aggression of the intruder species (Czechowski 1975;MacKay and MacKay 1982). This behavior may be highly advantageous for C. foreli.…”

“…Examples of interference competition include exclusion from food resources by threat displays or chemical repellents (HoÈ lldobler 1982;Czechowski 1985;Banks and Williams 1989), interference of foraging activity by mechanical means (MoÈ glich and Alpert 1979;Mabelis 1984;Gordon 1988), attack and destruction of nests of other species (Wilson 1976;LaMon and Topo 1981;MacKay and Mackay 1982;Droual 1983Droual , 1984Yamaguchi 1992), and agonistic interactions at territorial boundaries (reviewed in HoÈ lldobler and Lumsden 1980; Adams 1994). Most studies of ant community organization published to date have emphasized interspeci®c relationships between dominant species (Greenslade 1976;Fox et al 1985;Haering and Fox 1987) or between dominants and subordinates (HoÈ lldobler 1982;Savolainen 1990; VepsaÈ laÈ inen and Savolainen 1990;Perfecto 1994;Human and Gordon 1996).…”