Sugar feeding of the common black ant, Lasius niger (L.), as a possible indirect method for reducing aphid populations on apple by disturbing ant-aphid mutualism

Can artificial nectaries outcompete aphids in ant-aphid mutualism? Applying artificial sugar sources for ants to support better biological control of rosy apple aphid, Dysaphis plantaginea Passerini in apple orchards

“…2AeD). The results of our ant feeding and exclusion experiments are consistent with the results of other studies on apple (Wyss et al, 1999a;Stewart-Jones et al, 2008;Miñarro et al, 2010;Nagy et al, 2013). The absence of ants from aphid colonies results in increased predator pressure i.e.…”

“…As various studies previously reported, the exclusion of ants from tree canopies can decrease aphid attack in apple (Skinner, 1983;Wyss et al, 1999a;Stewart-Jones et al, 2008;Miñarro et al, 2010;Nagy et al, 2013) and cherry (Gruppe, 1990;Stutz and Schmidt-Entling, 2011) orchards if ant colonies are present in them. These previous studies reported that applying sticky barriers on the bark of the trees is a possible method for excluding ants from tree canopies, and through this, reducing aphid populations.…”

“…The absence of ants from aphid colonies results in increased predator pressure i.e. greater predator abundance per aphid colony (Table 1A, Skinner, 1983;Miñarro et al, 2010;Nagy et al, 2013) and/or increased foraging efficacy (Jiggins et al, 1993;Katayama and Suzuki, 2002).…”

Ants, pests and natural enemies in Mediterranean citrus. Ecological interactions and practical implications for biological control

“…increased workload when needs to be applied in commercial orchards. Alternative and environmental friendly methods based on manipulating the ant-hemiptera interaction (Nagy et al, 2013) or employing semiochemicals for disrupting ant foraging (Suckling et al, 2010) seem promising. Regarding the underlying mechanism, parasitism alone cannot explain the differences in the herbivore population levels between treatments observed in our study.…”

“…Thus the effectiveness of the natural enemies is expected to be enhanced, increasing additionally ant predation on herbivores, when ants are satiated with sugars. The supply of artificial sugar sources has been found to be effective in altering ant attendance and eventually reducing aphid populations in apple (Nagy et al, 2013) and citrus orchards (Sánchez-Alberola et al, 2013).…”