Fast Food Delivery: Is There a Way for Foraging Success in Leaf-Cutting Ants?

Sales, Tatiane Archanjo de; Hastenreiter, Isabel Neto; Almeida, Nilhian Gonçalves de; Lopes, Juliane Floriano Santos

doi:10.13102/sociobiology.v62i4.807

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…Physical trails can have several functions for ant colonies. First, they offer a smooth substrate and thus allow ants to move faster from the food locations to their nest, to have a higher transport efficiency and to increase their food delivery rate (Sales et al 2015, Bouchebti et al 2018. Second, they allow colonies to share and gather information rapidly on the resources available in the environment (Shepherd 1982, Farji-Brener & Sierra 1998, Dussutour et al 2007, Farji-Brener et al 2010, Bouchebti et al 2015a.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Longitudinal Study of Foraging Networks in the Grass-Cutting Ant Atta capiguara Gonçalves, 1944

et al. 2020

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Colonies of leaf-cutting ants of the genus Atta need to collect large quantities of vegetal substrate in their environment to ensure their growth. They do so by building and extending over time a foraging network that consists of several underground tunnels extending above ground by physical trails. This paper presents a longitudinal study of the foraging network of two mature colonies of the grass-cutting ant Atta capiguara (Gonçalves) located in a pasture in central Brazil. Specifically, we investigated whether the extension of the foraging area of the colonies required to reach new resources occurs by building new and longer underground tunnels or by building new and longer physical trails. Each nest was surveyed at intervals of approximately 15 days during 1 year. At each survey we mapped the position of the tunnel entrances and foraging trails at which activity was observed. In addition, we assessed the excavation effort of the colonies since the last survey by the number and distance to the nest of new tunnel entrances, and the physical trail construction effort by the number and length of newly built physical trails. Our study reveals that in A. capiguara the collection of new resources around the nest required to ensure the continuous growth of the colonies is achieved mainly through the excavation of new underground tunnels, opening at greater distance from the nest, not through the building of longer aboveground physical trails.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Longitudinal Study of Foraging Networks in the Grass-Cutting Ant Atta capiguara Gonçalves, 1944

et al. 2020

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“…Because they offer a relatively even surface, the use of trunk-trails allow ants to increase their speed (Rockwood & Hubbell 1987;Fewell 1988;Sales et al 2015;Bochynek et al 2017) and, probablythis has actually never been measuredto decrease the energetic cost of transport (Halsey 2016). Based on an estimation of the energetic cost of load transport, Howard (2001) showed that in leaf-cutting ants of the genus Atta the cost of construction and maintenance of physical trails may be relatively low compared to the huge number of workers in the colonies.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dynamics of physical trail construction and of trail usage in the leaf-cutting antAtta laevigata

Bouchebti

Travaglini

Forti

et al. 2018

Ethology Ecology & Evolution

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Leaf cutting ants of the genus Atta build long lasting physical trails to exploit the vegetation around their nest. In this paper we investigated the dynamics of physical trail construction and usage in the leaf-cutting ant Atta laevigata. We assessed the average duration of physical trail construction in a pasture environment and estimated the impact of the change in the physiognomy of the terrain on ant speed, individual gross transport rate and rate of resource collection by taking into account the effects of confounding variables for each of these parameters. We also examined whether ants are able to adjust their foraging behaviour at the individual or collective level in order to maintain the same rate of vegetation return to their nest along the construction process. We found that a colony of A. laevigata needs between 4½ and 6½ days to complete a physical trail. The construction proceeded in a fairly uniform manner along the trail, suggesting that it is not the result of the coordinated action of a small group of specialized individuals progressing along the trail but rather of the sum of uncoordinated actions of individual workers. Ant speed increased by a 2.6 factor on a cleared trail compared to an uncleared trail and individual gross transport rate nearly doubled. However, there was no significant change along the construction process in traffic intensity, the proportion of ants returning to the nest with a piece of vegetation or the rate of resource delivery to the nest. The main benefit of trail construction is thus to mobilize less foragers on the trail to collect the same amount of food, leaving the possibility for the remaining workers to forage on other trails or to accomplish other tasks.

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“…Acromyrmex foraging trails, as well as those of other ant species, present physical trails on the surface of the soil which are actively constructed by workers (Bruce and Burd, 2012) and vary in width and length (Sales et al, 2015;Lopes et al, 2016). They can be found in places with different physical characteristics which influence ant displacement.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They can be found in places with different physical characteristics which influence ant displacement. It is known, for example, that there is an increase in worker walking speed in physically delimited litter-free trails (Sales et al, 2015). This physical delimitation leads to a higher concentration of forager workers and a consequent increase in delivery rate to the colony, either due to an increase in the worker flow (Sales et al, 2015;Bochynek et al, 2017) or to the trail pheromone concentration (Jaffé and Howse, 1979;Sumpter, 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Avoiding traffic jams: Hitchhiking behavior as a strategy to reduce ant workers’ traffic on the foraging trail

Hastenreiter

Lopes

Camargo

et al. 2018

Behavioural Processes

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During foraging, thousands of leaf-cutting ant workers travel along high traffic foraging trails which, when narrow, reduce the leaf delivery rate due to the reduction in workers' travel-speed. On the other hand, high worker traffic promotes head-on encounters which are supposed to mediate worker task allocation and so could constitute a cue which induces traffic reduction. Very small workers along trails, for example, could change their task between marking the trail chemically to hitchhiking. Since they assume the hitchhiker function even in the absence of phorid parasitoids, one can suppose that hitchhiker behavior could be a strategy mediated by head-on encounters to avoid the high density of workers. Thus, we studied how the variation of worker density on the trail influences the hitchhiker frequency, testing the hypothesis that very small workers climb on the transported leaves to reduce trail traffic. Therefore, five Acromyrmex subterraneus colonies were linked to a foraging area by trails of different width (1.5 or 3 cm). We counted the number of hitchhikers and the outbound worker flow. The frequency of hitchhikers increased along narrow trails, and also due to outbound workers in both trail widths. Regardless of outbound foraging flow being comparable in both trail widths, the narrower ones had high density of workers leading to a presumed increase in head-on encounters. Head-on encounter rates cause a reduction in travel speed and, furthermore, are regulatory factors of task-allocation. Thus, high density trails lead to an increase in the rate of head-on encounters which could constitute as a stimulus to task-allocation of very small workers to the function of hitchhiker to avoid traffic jams.

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Fast Food Delivery: Is There a Way for Foraging Success in Leaf-Cutting Ants?

Cited by 4 publications

References 24 publications

Longitudinal Study of Foraging Networks in the Grass-Cutting Ant Atta capiguara Gonçalves, 1944

Longitudinal Study of Foraging Networks in the Grass-Cutting Ant Atta capiguara Gonçalves, 1944

Dynamics of physical trail construction and of trail usage in the leaf-cutting antAtta laevigata

Avoiding traffic jams: Hitchhiking behavior as a strategy to reduce ant workers’ traffic on the foraging trail

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