The Feeding Habits of Pseudomyrmine and Other Ants

Wheeler, W. M.; Johnson, Norm; Cora, Joe; Bailey, I. W.

doi:10.2307/1005485

Cited by 54 publications

(41 citation statements)

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“…Experimental colonies of this last species were exposed for 11 days to the labelled fungal patch instead of 6 days as in the two other species, strongly suggesting that duration of the experiment was too short for an accurate assessment of fungal ingestion by larvae. As pseudomyrmecine ants feed their larvae with the content of their infrabuccal pocket [22], which is used to store debris from cleaning and feeding activities, we also checked the content of infrabuccal pellets and of trophothylaces (infrabuccal pellets packed in a special pouch of the larva) for labelled hyphae in one of our study models (T. aethiops). The presence of labelled hyphae in both structures confirmed that hyphae from domatia fungal patches were transferred to larvae by workers.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Plant-ants use symbiotic fungi as a food source: new insight into the nutritional ecology of ant–plant interactions

et al. 2012

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Usually studied as pairwise interactions, mutualisms often involve networks of interacting species. Numerous tropical arboreal ants are specialist inhabitants of myrmecophytes (plants bearing domatia, i.e. hollow structures specialized to host ants) and are thought to rely almost exclusively on resources derived from the host plant. Recent studies, following up on century-old reports, have shown that fungi of the ascomycete order Chaetothyriales live in symbiosis with plant-ants within domatia. We tested the hypothesis that ants use domatia-inhabiting fungi as food in three ant -plant symbioses: Petalomyrmex phylax/Leonardoxa africana, Tetraponera aethiops/Barteria fistulosa and Pseudomyrmex penetrator/ Tachigali sp. Labelling domatia fungal patches in the field with either a fluorescent dye or 15 N showed that larvae ingested domatia fungi. Furthermore, when the natural fungal patch was replaced with a piece of a 15 N-labelled pure culture of either of two Chaetothyriales strains isolated from T. aethiops colonies, these fungi were also consumed. These two fungi often co-occur in the same ant colony. Interestingly, T. aethiops workers and larvae ingested preferentially one of the two strains. Our results add a new piece in the puzzle of the nutritional ecology of plant-ants.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…penetrator) routinely feed their larvae with infrabuccal pellets. The larvae in this subfamily have a special pocket-like structure below the head, called the trophothylax, that the workers fill with infrabuccal pellets [21,22]. Petalomyrmex phylax larvae (subfamily Formicinae) do not have a trophothylax.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Plant-ants use symbiotic fungi as a food source: new insight into the nutritional ecology of ant–plant interactions

et al. 2012

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“…Species assignments to these categories are based on published studies [19,20,27,[44][45][46][47] and personal observations by P.S.W. over the past 30 years.…”

Section: (D) Ancestral State Reconstructionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Macroevolutionary assembly of ant/plant symbioses:Pseudomyrmexants and their ant-housing plants in the Neotropics

2015

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Symbioses include some of the clearest cases of coevolution, but their origin, loss or reassembly with different partners can rarely be inferred. Here we use ant/plant symbioses involving three plant clades to investigate the evolution of symbioses. We generated phylogenies for the big-eyed arboreal ants (Pseudomyrmecinae), including 72% of their 286 species, as well as for five of their plant host groups, in each case sampling more than 61% of the species. We show that the ant-housing Vachellia (Mimosoideae) clade and its ants co-diversified for the past 5 Ma, with some species additionally colonized by younger plant-nesting ant species, some parasitic. An apparent co-radiation of ants and Tachigali (Caesalpinioideae) was followed by waves of colonization by the same ant clade, and subsequent occupation by a younger ant group. Wide crown and stem age differences between the ant-housing genus Triplaris (Polygonaceae) and its obligate ant inhabitants, and stochastic trait mapping, indicate that its domatium evolved earlier than the ants now occupying it, suggesting previous symbioses that dissolved. Parasitic ant species evolved from generalists, not from mutualists, and are younger than the mutualistic systems they parasitize. Our study illuminates the macroevolutionary assembly of ant/plant symbioses, which has been highly dynamic, even in very specialized systems.

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“…The "food pocket" is most highly developed in the Pseudomyrmecinae and is called the trophothylax (Wheeler and Bailey 1920;Wheeler and Wheeler 1956). The spinules in the trophothylax are positioned to help hold food in it, although this assistance may be unnecessary.…”

Section: Psychementioning

confidence: 99%

Comparative Anatomy of the Ventral Regionof Ant Larvae, and its Relation toFeeding Behavior

Petralia

Vinson

1979

Psyche: A Journal of Entomology

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The Feeding Habits of Pseudomyrmine and Other Ants

Cited by 54 publications

References 0 publications

Plant-ants use symbiotic fungi as a food source: new insight into the nutritional ecology of ant–plant interactions

Plant-ants use symbiotic fungi as a food source: new insight into the nutritional ecology of ant–plant interactions

Macroevolutionary assembly of ant/plant symbioses:Pseudomyrmexants and their ant-housing plants in the Neotropics

Comparative Anatomy of the Ventral Regionof Ant Larvae, and its Relation toFeeding Behavior

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