ant predation
Recently Published Documents


TOTAL DOCUMENTS

68
(FIVE YEARS 7)

H-INDEX

15
(FIVE YEARS 1)

Agronomy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 2323
Author(s):  
Bo Wang ◽  
Min Lu ◽  
Yanqiong Peng ◽  
Simon T. Segar

Mutualism can facilitate the colonization, establishment, and spread of invasive species. By modifying interactions with third parties, mutualisms can have cascading community-wide effects. Both native and invasive ants are capable of forming mutualisms with hemipteran insects, preying on non-hemipteran herbivores and indirectly affecting primary production. Comparative research on the effects of both native and invasive ant exclusions on multitrophic interactions is therefore crucial for understanding the invasive potential of ants, along with any ecological consequences that invasions may have. We performed a quantitative review of the multitrophic effects of invasive and native ants on insect–plant food webs. Herbivorous insects are the most common food source for both invasive (comprising 56% of prey species caught) and native ants (55% of the prey species caught), followed by predators (31% for invasive ants, 45% for native ants). Excluding both invasive and native ants significantly reduced hemipteran abundance, and excluding invasive ants had a greater negative impact on hemipteran abundance than native ants. Native ant predation significantly reduced herbivore abundance, but excluding invasive ants had no effect. Cascading effects of native ants on plant fitness were significantly positive, but there was no significant impact of invasive ants. These findings suggest a weak relationship between the presence of invasive ants and non-hemipteran herbivore abundance. We suggest that the hemipteran–ant mutualism could represent a ‘symbiotic invasion’. The ecological dominance of invasive ants is often facilitated by hemipteran insects. This association requires invasive ant control strategies to expand beyond ants to consider mutualists.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shaun M Davis ◽  
Gregory T Chism ◽  
Megan M Maurer ◽  
Julio E Trejo ◽  
Ricardo J Garcia ◽  
...  

Ants are ubiquitous and consume insects at all life stages, presumably creating a strong selective pressure for ant avoidance behaviors across insects. The insect egg stage can be especially defenseless against predation given that eggs are usually immobile and unguarded, suggesting insect mothers may have evolved oviposition strategies to minimize the ant predation risk to their offspring. Given the lack of parental care in most insects, these oviposition strategies would likely be innate rather than learned, since insect mothers are not usually present to assess predation of their eggs. Here, we use the vinegar fly Drosophila melanogaster as a model system for examining parental defensive responses to ant presence. Flies usually lay eggs partially inserted into the food substrate, although some are laid on top of the food and a few are inserted deeply into the food. We found that exposure to ants significantly alters fly oviposition depth: the proportion of eggs on the food surface decreased while the proportion of buried eggs increased. Buried eggs survive ant foraging bouts better than surface eggs, showing that this oviposition depth behavior is adaptive. This induced behavior is conserved across the genus Drosophila and is dependent on the fly olfactory system: anosmic mutant flies fail to bury their eggs in the presence of ants, and ant odor extracts are sufficient to induce egg burying. By fractionating ant body washes and using GC-MS to identify fraction constituents, we identified the saturated, long-chain alcohol 1-octadecanol as the odorant flies use to sense ant presence. To further delineate the ant lineages to which flies respond, we exposed flies to the odors from numerous species of ants and other insects. Surprisingly, flies buried their eggs in response to the odors of nearly all hymenopterans tested, including hymenopteran groups that flies rarely interact with in nature like bees and paper wasps. Our data suggest that 1-octadecanol is a conserved and ancient hymenopteran odorant, and that drosophilids evolved a mechanism for sensing this odorant early in their evolution as a means of protecting their offspring from ant predation. This study sheds light on the ecology and mechanisms underlying a common biotic interaction in nature, that between insect parents and the ants that would consume their offspring.


Diversity ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 7
Author(s):  
Deborah M. Epperson ◽  
Craig R. Allen ◽  
Katharine F. E. Hogan

Gopher Tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus) burrows support diverse commensal invertebrate communities that may be of special conservation interest. We investigated the impact of red imported fire ants (Solenopsis invicta) on the invertebrate burrow community at 10 study sites in southern Mississippi, sampling burrows (1998–2000) before and after bait treatments to reduce fire ant populations. We sampled invertebrates using an ant bait attractant for ants and burrow vacuums for the broader invertebrate community and calculated fire ant abundance, invertebrate abundance, species richness, and species diversity. Fire ant abundance in gopher tortoise burrows was reduced by >98% in treated sites. There was a positive treatment effect on invertebrate abundance, diversity, and species richness from burrow vacuum sampling which was not observed in ant sampling from burrow baits. Management of fire ants around burrows may benefit both threatened gopher tortoises by reducing potential fire ant predation on hatchlings, as well as the diverse burrow invertebrate community. Fire-ant management may also benefit other species utilizing tortoise burrows, such as the endangered Dusky Gopher Frog and Schaus swallowtail butterfly. This has implications for more effective biodiversity conservation via targeted control of the invasive fire ant at gopher tortoise burrows.


Author(s):  
Sumedha Korgaonkar ◽  
Anuja Vartak ◽  
Kuppusamy Sivakumar

Abstract: Predation of eggs and emerging hatchlings of olive ridley turtle (Lepidochelys olivacea) by wild animals and feral dogs are known. They reduce the hatching success rate considerably affecting the conservation management of this vulnerable species. Hatchery management is practised in India to overcome predation. Ant predation is a serious threat to turtle nest protected by ex situ or in situ erected hatchery. This article reports the first direct evidence of turtle eggs predation by Dorylus orientalis Westwood, 1835 commonly called red ants. Native to India, Oriental, Indo Australian and Palearctic regions they are notorious as an agricultural pest. Chlorpyrifos pesticides recommended for their control could become fatal for the developing embryos of turtles if applied near the hatchery. In the turtle nesting site of the west coast of India, D. orientalis has more of an ecological role than as a pest. Natural pesticide such as Neem powder (Azadirachta indica) shows promising results for preventing their infestation.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (21) ◽  
pp. 12099-12112
Author(s):  
Michael S. Singer ◽  
Robert E. Clark ◽  
Emily R. Johnson ◽  
Isaac H. Lichter‐Marck ◽  
Kailen A. Mooney ◽  
...  

2017 ◽  
Vol 162 (3) ◽  
pp. 302-308 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renata Pacheco ◽  
Gabriela P. Camacho ◽  
Tiago L.M. Frizzo ◽  
Heraldo L. Vasconcelos

Ecology ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 97 (12) ◽  
pp. 3379-3388 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert E. Clark ◽  
Timothy E. Farkas ◽  
Isaac Lichter-Marck ◽  
Emily R. Johnson ◽  
Michael S. Singer

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document