Ant-aphid interactions in multispecies ant communities: Some ecological and ethological aspects

Title:

Ant-aphid interactions in multispecies ant communities: Some ecological and ethological aspects

Creator:

Novgorodova, Tatiana A:

Identifier:

https://cdk.lib.cas.cz/client/handle/uuid:9fb8bcf8-b2af-4e84-b199-fdeba31069c3
uuid:9fb8bcf8-b2af-4e84-b199-fdeba31069c3

Subject:

Ants-aphids interaction, Formicinae, Myrmicinae, Coccinella septempunctata, multispecies communities, symbiosis, aphid diversity, behaviour, trophobionts, and foragers

Type:

article, model:article, and TEXT

Description:

Investigations of the interactions between aphids and ants in multispecies ant communities and an experimental investigation of some ethological aspects of ant-aphid interactions were carried out in mixed forests at Novosibirsk Academic Centre, from 1998-2002. The eight species of ants investigated were characterized by different levels of territorial organization and interaction with aphids, which were associated with different degrees of specialization of the worker ants. The most myrmecophilous species of aphids (24 out of 33 species identified) were associated with the red wood ants. By placing Coccinella septempunctata Linnaeus (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) in aphid colonies it was shown that only ants with large protected territories attacked the adults and larvae of the predator. Other species of ants either protected aphids only from adult ladybirds or did not guard them at all. Moreover, only individuals of Formica s. str., which has specialized workers, did not switch to collecting protein food. However, aphids make up a considerable part of the prey of ants, in which non-myrmecophilous aphids predominate (about 60-100% of the aphid prey). Moreover, ants only killed unattended or damaged myrmecophilous aphids. Formica s. str., which has the highest level of social and territorial organization, provides aphids with the most services and is the dominant species forming symbiotic relationships with aphids in the communities studied.

Language:

English

Rights:

http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/
policy:public

Source:

European Journal of Entomology | 2005 Volume:102 | Number:3

Harvested from:

CDK

Metadata only:

false