Foraging behavior and locomotion of the invasive Argentine ant from winter aggregations

Burford, Benjamin P.; Lee, Gail; Friedman, Daniel; Brachmann, Esmé; Khan, Rebia; MacArthur-Waltz, Dylan J.; McCarty, Aidan D.; Gordon, Deborah M.

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0202117

Cited by 10 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…Laboratory observations showed that treated workers stay alive for approximately 2 h before becoming symptomatic and unable to walk. The walking speed of Argentine ant workers is approximately 2 cm per sec 34 , equivalent to 108 meters per hour. Given that treated workers stay alive for at least 2 hours, they could have easily dispersed throughout the plots.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Controlling invasive Argentine ants, Linepithema humile, in conservation areas using horizontal insecticide transfer

Buczkowski

Wossler

2019

Sci Rep

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Invasive ants are major agricultural and urban pests and a significant concern in conservation areas. Despite long history of control and eradication efforts, invasive ants continue to spread around the globe driven by a multitude of synergistic factors. Lack of effective management tools is one of the biggest challenges in controlling invasive ants. The goal of the current study was to improve the efficacy and safety of ant management and to develop effective control strategies for sensitive conservation areas. We utilized the Argentine ant (Linepithema humile) as a model system to evaluate a target-specific pesticide delivery system that exploits the interconnected nature of social insect colonies to distribute a toxicant effectively within the colony. The approach, based entirely on horizontal transfer, takes advantage of various levels of social interactions in ant colonies to disseminate a toxicant throughout the colony. Results of laboratory studies coupled with LC/MS/MS analysis demonstrate that fipronil is toxic to Argentine ants in extremely small (nanogram) quantities and is efficiently transferred from a single treated donor to multiple recipients, causing significant secondary mortality. A field study was conducted in native fynbos plots invaded by Argentine ants. The study consisted of collecting naïve workers, treating them with fipronil, and releasing them within invaded plots. Results show that the release of fipronil-treated ants reduced Argentine ant abundance by >90% within 24 h. The horizontal transfer approach offers environmental benefits with regard to pesticide use in ecologically sensitive environments and appears ideally suited for ant management in conservation areas.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Controlling invasive Argentine ants, Linepithema humile, in conservation areas using horizontal insecticide transfer

Buczkowski

Wossler

2019

Sci Rep

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“…To account for DeepLabCut tracking errors, any ant movement exceeding two millimetres per frame was considered implausible and subsequently removed. This is due to biological constraints that limit ants’ movement to a maximum speed of around one millimetre per frame (Burford et al ., 2018). In this process, an average of 0.1% [0%, 0.8%, N = 526] of frames were eliminated from each video.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Acute exposure to caffeine improves navigation in an invasive ant

Galante,

De Agrò,

Koch

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Invasive alien species are a major and growing problem, devastating ecosystems and costing billions of euros in damage and control efforts. Argentine ants, Linepithema humile, are particularly concerning, with control efforts often falling short likely due to a lack of sufficient bait consumption. Using neuroactives to manipulate ant navigation and learning could increase recruitment and consumption, ultimately leading to more efficient control strategies. Caffeine is naturally occurring, cheap, and has been found to cause motivational and cognitive improvements in bees. Here, we subject L. humile to a wide range of caffeine concentrations and a complex but ecologically relevant task: an open landscape foraging experiment. Without caffeine, we find no effect of consecutive foraging visits on the time the ants take to reach a reward, suggesting a failure to learn the reward's location. However, low (25ppm) to intermediate (250ppm) concentrations of caffeine lead to a decrease of up to 38% in the time taken to find the reward during each consecutive visit, implying that caffeine boosts learning. Interestingly, such improvements are lost at high (2000ppm) doses. In contrast, caffeine appears to have no impact on the ants' homing behaviour, as the time required to reach the nest was similar across treatments. The effect of caffeine is thus not only dose-dependent, but also differentially targets neurologically distinct navigational mechanisms. Adding moderate levels of caffeine to baits could be a simple way to improve ant's ability to learn its location, potentially leading to increased recruitment to, and consumption of, the toxicant.

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“…Aktivitas semut mencari makan selain dipengaruhi faktor internal seperti rasa lapar (Howard dan Tschinkel 1980) juga dipengaruhi faktor eksternal seperti suhu pada semut Solenopsis invicta (Porter dan Tschinkel 1987) dan kelembapan pada semut Linepithema humile (Burford et al 2018). Penelitian O. smaragdina di wilayah urban telah dilakukan oleh Rizali et al (2008) dan Rezki et al (under review), namun belum ada penelitian di Indonesia yang membandingkan antar pulau untuk pemilihaan makanan dan pengenalan anggota koloni.…”

Section: Pendahuluanunclassified

“…Suhu luar di lokasi sarang relatif tinggi (28-31°C) dengan kelembapan yang rendah (55-75%), karena sarang terletak pada lokasi urban yang memiliki sedikit pepohonan. O. smaragdina merupakan semut rangrang yang aktivitasnya berhubungan dengan suhu (Mishra dan Bhadani 2017) dan kelembapan (Burford et al 2018). Akan tetapi, perilaku makan O. smaragdina di dalam kultur toleran terhadap suhu dan kelembapan, serta jika populasinya kecil aktivitasnya dipengaruhi oleh angin di awal sore hari (Greenslade 1972).…”

Section: Hasilunclassified

Perilaku Pemilihan Makanan dan Pengenalan Anggota Koloni pada Semut Rangrang Oecophylla smaragdina

Hasan

Fitradiansyah

Susanti

et al. 2021

JSDH

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Weaver ants Oecophylla smaragdina are social insects that recognize nestmates using pheromone. This study analyzes the feeding behavior and nestmate recognition of weaver ants in the urban area of three different islands (Sumatra: Baturaja; Java: Banyuwangi; Papua: Sorong). The free ants were placed in the arena composed of chicken meat, sugar, bananas as the baits. Ten trapped ants were also located in the arena to explore the nestmate recognition between the free and the trapped ants. Five types of behaviors, i.e., approach, stalking, communication, competition, and agonistic, were recorded in 6 days. Food preferences were indicated by the number of conduct towards the feeding sites, and nestmate recognition was indicated by approaching the trapped nestmate. The results showed that the percentage of the approach behavior of free ants was the highest in the three islands but had no significant difference between Sumatra and Java and between Java and Sorong (p-value >0.05). However, the study showed significant differences for the other four behaviors observed. As predicted, the percentage of chicken meat foraged by the ants was the highest due to the carnivorous behavior. The free ants showed the nestmate recognition to the trapped ants in all behavior, except competition.

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Foraging behavior and locomotion of the invasive Argentine ant from winter aggregations

Cited by 10 publications

References 41 publications

Controlling invasive Argentine ants, Linepithema humile, in conservation areas using horizontal insecticide transfer

Controlling invasive Argentine ants, Linepithema humile, in conservation areas using horizontal insecticide transfer

Acute exposure to caffeine improves navigation in an invasive ant

Perilaku Pemilihan Makanan dan Pengenalan Anggota Koloni pada Semut Rangrang Oecophylla smaragdina

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