The foraging strategy of Formica sanguinea (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), a facultative slave-maker
  • Metaadatok
Tartalom: http://real.mtak.hu/64695/
Archívum: MTA Könyvtár
Gyűjtemény: Status = Published
Type = Article

Cím:
The foraging strategy of Formica sanguinea (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), a facultative slave-maker
Létrehozó:
Slipinski, Piotr
Markó, Bálint
Wlodarczyk, Tomasz
Czechowski, Wojciech
Dátum:
2018
Téma:
QH540 Ecology / ökológia
QL750-QL782.5 Animal behavior / etológia, állat-viselkedéstan
Tartalmi leírás:
There are almost no hard data on the competitive status of Formica sanguinea and previous studies focus
mainly on its spectacular lifestyle as a slave-maker. It is usually described as an aggressive and territorial
species, the latter due to its raiding behaviour and morphological resemblance to species of the subgenus
Formica s. str. (typical territorial species and top dominants). A series of field observations using baits was
carried out across the longitudinal extent of F. sanguinea’s range in Europe, from Finland, through Poland to
Romania. The main objective of the present study was to determine the competitive abilities of F. sanguinea
and its status in the interspecific ant hierarchy. We also investigated the changes in the competitive abilities
of F. sanguinea along the meridional axis of the species’ range. Based on our results, the distribution of F.
sanguinea foragers around the nest showed a distance dependent pattern, with fewer individuals present in
distant arenas and at distant baits. While in the absence of baits, other ant species were seemingly not influenced
by the abundance of F. sanguinea, this changed in the presence of baits, showing that F. sanguinea has
a negative effect on other species. Still, many baits were exploited by other ant species around the studied
nests. There were also clear differences among the study regions in terms of baits utilisation, with Finnish
colonies exploiting most of baits, while Romanian colonies mostly neglecting them. In light of the present
study and due to the complexity of the competitive strategy of the species, we believe that F. sanguinea does
not fall into the conventionally arranged three-level hierarchy of interspecific ant competition. In addition,
F. sanguinea’s competitive ability may depend on local ecological conditions as revealed by the comparison
of different populations across Europe.
Nyelv:
angol
magyar
Típus:
Article
PeerReviewed
info:eu-repo/semantics/article
Formátum:
text
text
Azonosító:
Slipinski, Piotr and Markó, Bálint and Wlodarczyk, Tomasz and Czechowski, Wojciech (2018) The foraging strategy of Formica sanguinea (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), a facultative slave-maker. MYRMECOLOGICAL NEWS, 26. pp. 55-64. ISSN 1994-4136
Kapcsolat:
Létrehozó:
info:eu-repo/semantics/closedAccess