The size–distance relationship in the wood ant <i>Formica rufa</i>

Wright, P. J.; Bonser, Robert; Chukwu, Uchegbu O.

doi:10.1046/j.1365-2311.2000.00253.x

Cited by 19 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Concerning food distance, most authors who aimed at testing optimal foraging predictions, have examined how distance infl uences foraging strategies in terms of time/ energy costs and gains for ant colonies. Relationships between increasing food distance and larger forager body sizes or heavier food loads were reported in fungus-growing (Roces, 1990;Wetterer, 1991;Roschard and Roces, 2003a), harvester (Nonacs, 2002) or honeydew collecting ant species (McIver and Loomis, 1993;Wright et al, 2000;Nonacs, 2002). There is also evidence that distance of food patches determines task partitioning, sequential load transport (Anderson et al, 2002;Roschard and Roces, 2003b) and sizematching (Ferster and Traniello, 1995;Roschard and Roces, 2003b).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 92%

How does food distance influence foraging in the ant Lasius niger: the importance of home-range marking

Devigne

Detrain

2006

Insect. Soc.

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We study the infl uence of food distance on the individual foraging behaviour of Lasius niger scouts and we investigate which cue they use to assess their distance from the nest and accordingly tune their recruiting behaviour. Globally, the number of U-turns made by scouts increases with distance resulting in longer travel times and duration of the foraging cycle. However, over familiar areas, homerange marking reduces the frequency and thereby the impact of U-turns on foraging times leading to a quicker exploitation of food sources than over unmarked set-ups. Regarding information transfer, the intensity of the recruitment trail reaching the nest decreases with increasing food distance for all set-ups and is even more reduced in the absence of homerange marking. Hence, the probability of a scout continuing to lay a trail changes along the homeward journey but in a different way according to home-range marking. Over unexplored setups, at a given distance from the food source, the percentage of returning trail-laying ants remains unchanged for all tested nest-feeder distances. Hence, the tuning of the trail recruiting signal by scouts was not infl uenced by an odometric estimate of the distance already travelled by the ants during their outward journey to the food. By contrast, over previously explored set-ups, a distance-related factorthat is the intensity of home-range marking -strongly infl uences their recruiting behaviour. In fact, over a home-range marked bridge, the probability of returning ants maintaining their trail-laying behaviour increases with decreasing food distance while the gradient of home-range marks even induces ants which have stopped laying a trail to resume this behaviour in the nest vicinity. We suggest that home-range marking laid passively by walking ants is a relevant cue for scouts to indirectly assess distance from the nest but also local activity level or foraging risks in order to adaptively tune trail recruitment and colony foraging dynamics.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 92%

How does food distance influence foraging in the ant Lasius niger: the importance of home-range marking

Devigne

Detrain

2006

Insect. Soc.

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“…Ants may adjust honeydew collection according to the distance from the nest, the quantity of the resource, and the risk of being preyed upon (Dreisig 1988;Wright et al 2000;Mailleux et al 2003). In our study case, soil entrances from which workers of both ant species climbed the trunks to collect honeydew were at the base of the chosen trees, and the area of canopy where ants search for aphids did not differ [canopy area (mean ± SE) L. neglectus 50.24 ± 9.31 m 2 ; L. grandis 27.20 ± 10.20 m 2 ; F 1, 9 = 2.79, P = 0.129).…”

Section: Tree Selectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In our study case, soil entrances from which workers of both ant species climbed the trunks to collect honeydew were at the base of the chosen trees, and the area of canopy where ants search for aphids did not differ [canopy area (mean ± SE) L. neglectus 50.24 ± 9.31 m 2 ; L. grandis 27.20 ± 10.20 m 2 ; F 1, 9 = 2.79, P = 0.129). We therefore assume that honeydew collection was not influenced by distance (Wright et al 2000;Nonacs 2002).…”

Section: Tree Selectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Honeydew collection by the invasive garden ant Lasius neglectus versus the native ant L. grandis

Paris

Espadaler

2009

Arthropod-Plant Interactions

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Honeydew collection performed by the invasive ant Lasius neglectus and by the native ant L. grandis was compared. The invasive ant collected 2.09 kg of honeydew per tree while the native ant collected 0.82 kg. The aphid Lachnus roboris was visited by both ant species. In holm oaks colonized by L. neglectus, aphid abundance tended to increase and its honeydew production increased twofold. The percentage of untended aphids was lower in holm trees occupied by L. neglectus. As tending ants also prey on insects, we estimated the percentage of carried insects. The native ant workers carried more insects than the invasive ant. Both ant species preyed mainly on Psocoptera and the rarely tended aphid, Hoplocallis picta. We conclude that the higher honeydew collection achieved by L. neglectus was the consequence of (1) its greater abundance, which enabled this ant to tend more Lachnus roboris and (2) its greater level of attention towards promoting an increase of honeydew production.

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“…The result that larger wasps tended to carry a greater volume of food than did smaller wasps is not surprising. Load size is also positively related to body size in nectargathering ants (Wright et al, 2000), leaf-cutter ants (Roces, 1990;Wetterer, 1990), and some species of seed-harvesting ants (Crist and MacMahon, 1991;Ferster and Traniello, 1995;Willott et al, 2000).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Classic optimal foraging theory predicts that foragers should compensate for the time and/or energy spent traveling to and from food by collecting a larger load at greater distances from the nest (Krebs and Davies, 1993). Indeed, this has been confirmed for honey bees and nectar-collecting ants; foragers tend to gather more food at greater distances from the nest (Nuñez, 1982;Wright et al, 2000). However, not all central-place foragers behave according to this rule.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 88%

Temperature and forager body size affect carbohydrate collection in German yellowjackets, Vespula germanica (Hymenoptera, Vespidae)

Jandt

Taylor²,

Jeanne³

2010

Insect. Soc.

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The classic formulation of optimal foraging theory predicts that a central-place forager will gather more food if it is required to travel farther from the nest to find that food. We examined the foraging behavior of German yellowjackets (Vespula germanica) to determine whether carbohydrate foragers follow this pattern. We trained foragers to collect 2 M fructose solution at 5 or 50 m from the nest and measured the time spent feeding, load size, and the rate of delivery. We show that as a forager's crop fills during a foraging bout, the amount of solution ingested per second decreased. However, load size did not change as wasps collected food up to 50 m from the nest. Instead, temperature and body size were better predictors of the volume of fructose a forager carried. Finally, the rate of fructose delivered to the nest was higher at warmer temperatures. Due to the fact that wasps gather more food but feed for shorter periods of time at warmer temperatures, we found an overall negative relationship between feeding time and load size. We conclude that the strong effects temperature had on the behavior of V. germanica foragers imply that feeding time may not always be an accurate predictor of the size of the load an individual carries back to the nest. Results from this study suggest that in yellowjacket colonies, foragers can collect and bring disproportionately more food back to the nest during the warmest days of the summer, a time of year when this pest species reaches peak population size during its annual colony cycle.

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The size–distance relationship in the wood ant Formica rufa

Cited by 19 publications

References 22 publications

How does food distance influence foraging in the ant Lasius niger: the importance of home-range marking

How does food distance influence foraging in the ant Lasius niger: the importance of home-range marking

Honeydew collection by the invasive garden ant Lasius neglectus versus the native ant L. grandis

Temperature and forager body size affect carbohydrate collection in German yellowjackets, Vespula germanica (Hymenoptera, Vespidae)

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