Related Research Articles
Formica exsecta is a species of ant found from Western Europe to Asia.
An ant colony is a population of a single ant species able to maintain its complete lifecycle. Ant colonies are eusocial, communal, and efficiently organized and are very much like those found in other social Hymenoptera, though the various groups of these developed sociality independently through convergent evolution. The typical colony consists of one or more egg-laying queens, numerous sterile females and, seasonally, many winged sexual males and females. In order to establish new colonies, ants undertake flights that occur at species-characteristic times of the day. Swarms of the winged sexuals depart the nest in search of other nests. The males die shortly thereafter, along with most of the females. A small percentage of the females survive to initiate new nests.
Carpenter ants are large ants indigenous to many forested parts of the world.
The pharaoh ant is a small (2 mm) yellow or light brown, almost transparent ant notorious for being a major indoor nuisance pest, especially in hospitals. A cryptogenic species, it has now been introduced to virtually every area of the world, including Europe, the Americas, Australasia and Southeast Asia. It is a major pest in the United States, Australia, and Europe. The ant's common name is said to be derived from the mistaken belief that it was one of the biblical Egyptian (pharaonic) plagues.
Lasioglossum malachurum, the sharp-collared furrow bee, is a small European halictid bee. This species is obligately eusocial, with queens and workers, though the differences between the castes are not nearly as extreme as in honey bees. Early taxonomists mistakenly assigned the worker females to a different species from the queens. They are small, shiny, mostly black bees with off-white hair bands at the bases of the abdominal segments. L. malachurum is one of the more extensively studied species in the genus Lasioglossum, also known as sweat bees. Researchers have discovered that the eusocial behavior in colonies of L. malachurum varies significantly dependent upon the region of Europe in which each colony is located.
The gyne is the primary reproductive female caste of social insects. Gynes are those destined to become queens, whereas female workers are typically barren and cannot become queens. Having a queen is what makes a "queenright" hive, nest, or colony of eusocial insects. A colony with multiple queens is said to be a polygyne form, whereas one with only one is a monogyne form.
Formica polyctena is a species of European red wood ant in the genus Formica and large family Formicidae. The species was first described by Arnold Förster in 1850. The latin species name polyctena is from Greek and literally means 'many cattle', referring to the species' habit of farming aphids for honeydew food. It is found in many European countries. It is a eusocial species, that has a distinct caste system of sterile workers and a very small reproductive caste. The ants have a genetic based cue that allow them to identify which other ants are members of their nest and which are foreign individuals. When facing these types of foreign invaders the F. polyctena has a system to activate an alarm. It can release pheromones which can trigger an alarm response in other nearby ants.
Harpagoxenus sublaevis is a species of ant in the subfamily Myrmicinae. It is found in Austria, France, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland.
Eusociality is the highest level of organization of sociality. It is defined by the following characteristics: cooperative brood care, overlapping generations within a colony of adults, and a division of labor into reproductive and non-reproductive groups. The division of labor creates specialized behavioral groups within an animal society which are sometimes referred to as 'castes'. Eusociality is distinguished from all other social systems because individuals of at least one caste usually lose the ability to perform behaviors characteristic of individuals in another caste. Eusocial colonies can be viewed as superorganisms.
Acromyrmex striatus is a species of the leaf-cutter ants found in the Neotropics.
Polistes metricus is a wasp native to North America. In the United States, it ranges throughout the southern Midwest, the South, and as far northeast as New York, but has recently been spotted in southwest Ontario. A single female specimen has also been reported from Dryden, Maine. Polistes metricus is dark colored, with yellow tarsi and black tibia. Nests of Polistes metricus can be found attached to the sides of buildings, trees, and shrubbery.
Within the insect order Hymenoptera, the Halictinae are the largest, most diverse, and most recently diverged of the four halictid subfamilies. They comprise over 2400 bee species belonging to the five taxonomic tribes Augochlorini, Thrinchostomini, Caenohalictini, Sphecodini, and Halictini, which some entomologists alternatively organize into the two tribes Augochlorini and Halictini.
A gamergate is a mated worker ant that can reproduce sexually, i.e., lay fertilized eggs that will develop as females. In the vast majority of ant species, workers are sterile and gamergates are restricted to taxa where the workers have a functional sperm reservoir ('spermatheca'). In some species, gamergates reproduce in addition to winged queens, while in other species the queen caste has been completely replaced by gamergates. In gamergate species, all workers in a colony have similar reproductive potentials, but as a result of physical interactions, a dominance hierarchy is formed and only one or a few top-ranking workers can mate and produce eggs. Subsequently, however, aggression is no longer needed as gamergates secrete chemical signals that inform the other workers of their reproductive status in the colony.
Formica truncorum is a species of wood ant from the genus Formica. It is distributed across a variety of locations worldwide, including central Europe and Japan. Workers can range from 3.5 to 9.0mm and are uniquely characterized by small hairs covering their entire bodies. Like all other ants, F. truncorum is eusocial and demonstrates many cooperative behaviors that are unique to its order. Colonies are either monogynous, with one queen, or polygynous, with many queens, and these two types of colonies differ in many characteristics.
An ergatoid is a permanently wingless reproductive adult ant or termite. The similar but somewhat ambiguous term ergatogyne refers to any intermediate form between workers and standard gynes. Ergatoid queens are distinct from other ergatogyne individuals in that they are morphologically consistent within a species and are always capable of mating, whereas inter caste individuals, another class of ergatogynes, often are not. Ergatoids can exhibit wide morphological differences between species, sometimes appearing almost identical to normal workers and other times being quite distinct from both workers and standard queens. In addition to morphological features, ergatoids among different species can exhibit a wide range of behaviors, with some ergatoids acting only as reproductives and others actively foraging. Ergatoid queens have developed among a large number of ant species, and their presence within colonies can often provide clues on the social structures of colonies and as to how new colonies are founded. Without wings, almost all species of ants that solely produce ergatoid queens establish new colonies by fission.
Megaponera analis is the sole species of the genus Megaponera. They are a strictly termite-eating (termitophagous) ponerine ant species widely distributed in Sub-Saharan Africa and most commonly known for their column-like raiding formation when attacking termite feeding sites. Their sophisticated raiding behaviour gave them the common name Matabele ant after the Matabele tribe, fierce warriors who overwhelmed various other tribes during the 1800s. With some individuals reaching up to 25 millimetres (0.98 in) in length, M. analis is one of the world's largest ants.
Mischocyttarus mexicanus cubicola is a neotropical subspecies of paper wasp found in the New World. It is a social wasp that demonstrates two different types of nesting strategies, depending upon context. This context-dependent trait makes Mischocyttarus mexicanus cubicola a good model to study social biology within social wasps. In detail, this trait allows for the females of this species to form nests both individually and as co-founders with other females within the same colony. This subspecies is also known to exhibit cannibalism, with M. m. cubicola queens feeding on their own larvae for nourishment when unaided by workers.
Pleometrosis is a behavior observed in social insects where colony formation is initiated by multiple queens primarily by the same species of insect. This type of behavior has been mainly studied in ants but also occurs in wasps, bees, and termites. This behavior is of significant interest to scientists particularly in ants and termites because nest formation often happens between queens that are unrelated, ruling out the argument of inclusive fitness as the driving force of pleometrosis. Whereas in other species such as wasps and bees co-founding queens are often related. The majority of species that engage in pleometrosis after the initial stages of colony formation will reduce their colonies number of queens down to one dominant queen and either kill or push out the supernumerary queens. However there are some cases where pleometrosis-formed colonies keep multiple queens for longer than the early stages of colony growth. Multiple queens can help to speed a colony through the early stages of colony growth by producing a larger worker ant population faster which helps to out-compete other colonies in colony-dense areas. However forming colonies with multiple queens can also cause intra-colony competition between the queens possibly lowering the likelihood of survival of a queen in a pleometrotic colony.
Bombus pauloensis is a neotropical bumblebee, formerly known as Bombus atratus, that is found throughout regions of South America, including Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, and Argentina. It lives in social colonies that include a founder queen/queens, workers and brood. B. pauloensis is somewhat unusual because of its potential to oscillate between polygynous and monogynous nesting cycles. Bombus pauloensis was the first species in the genus Bombus that was discovered to display such polygynous nesting patterns. The polygynous nesting cycles lead to certain specific types of behavior including queen-queen aggression. Nests can also be perennial, which is a characteristic rarely found in other bumblebees. B. pauloensis can be helpful to agricultural because of their ability to pollinate different species of plants. B. pauloensis has been found to occupy a range of geographic areas and climates throughout South America. Colonies have the ability to thermoregulate nests and keep them a little bit warmer than the outside environment. Foraging workers use muscle contractions to maintain stable temperatures and coupe with seasonal and daily fluctuations in temperature.
Ectatomma opaciventre is a South American species of ant from the subfamily Ectatomminae. In the Brazilian savannah, nests occur at low density and in specific microhabitats.
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 Agosti, Donat; Majer, Jonathan D.; Alonso, Leeanne E.; Schultz, Ted R., eds. (2000). Ants: Standard Methods for Measuring and Monitoring Biodiversity. Smithsonian Institution Press. ISBN 1-56098-885-1.
- ↑ Schmidt, C. A; Shattuck, S. O. (2014). "The Higher Classification of the Ant Subfamily Ponerinae (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), with a Review of Ponerine Ecology and Behavior". Zootaxa . 3817 (1): 1–242. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.3817.1.1. PMID 24943802.
- ↑ Brown, W. L. Jr. (1960). "Contributions toward a reclassification of the Formicidae. III Tribe Amblyoponini (Hymenoptera)". Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology. 122: 143–230.
- 1 2 Michael Allaby (2012). A Dictionary of Plant Sciences. OUP Oxford. p. 158. ISBN 978-0-19-960057-1.
- 1 2 3 Peeters, C. P. (1991). "Ergatoid queens and intercastes in ants: Two distinct adult forms which look morphologically intermediate between workers and winged queens". Insectes Sociaux . 38 (1): 1–15. doi:10.1007/BF01242708. S2CID 19188793.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Wilson, Edward O.; Hölldobler, Bert (1977). "The number of queens: An important trait in ant evolution". Naturwissenschaften. 64 (1): 8–15. Bibcode:1977NW.....64....8H. doi:10.1007/bf00439886. S2CID 13004419.
- 1 2 Csősz, S.; Majoros, G. (2009). "Ontogenetic origin of mermithogenic Myrmica phenotypes (Hymenoptera, Formicidae)". Insectes Sociaux. 56 (1): 70–76. doi:10.1007/s00040-008-1040-3. S2CID 24435877.
- 1 2 Heinze, Jürgen; Tsuji, Kazuki (1995). "Ant reproductive strategies". Researches on Population Ecology. 37 (2): 135–149. Bibcode:1995PopEc..37..135H. doi:10.1007/BF02515814. S2CID 21948488.
- 1 2 3 4 Robinson, Elva JH (2014). "Polydomy: the organisation and adaptive function of complex nest systems in ants". Current Opinion in Insect Science. 5: 37–43. Bibcode:2014COIS....5...37R. doi: 10.1016/j.cois.2014.09.002 . PMID 32846740.
- ↑ Pfeiffer, Martin; Huttenlocher, Heiko; Ayasse, Manfred (2010). "Myrmecochorous plants use chemical mimicry to cheat seed-dispersing ants". Functional Ecology. 24 (3): 545–555. Bibcode:2010FuEco..24..545P. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2435.2009.01661.x .
- ↑ Mynhardt, Glené (2013). "Declassifying Myrmecophily in the Coleoptera to Promote the Study of Ant-Beetle Symbioses". Psyche: A Journal of Entomology. 2013 (7): 1–8. doi: 10.1155/2013/696401 .
- ↑ Ouagoussounon, I; Offenberg, J; Sinzogan, A; Adandonon, A; Kossou, D; Vayssières, JF (2015). "Founding weaver ant queens (Oecophylla longinoda) increase production and nanitic worker size when adopting non-nestmate pupae". SpringerPlus. 4 (6): 6. doi: 10.1186/2193-1801-4-6 . PMC 4429428 . PMID 25995983.
- ↑ Hölldobler, Bert; Carlin, Norman F. (1985). "Colony founding, queen dominance and oligogyny in the Australian meat ant Iridomyrmex purpureus". Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. 18 (1): 45–58. doi:10.1007/BF00299237. ISSN 1432-0762. JSTOR 4599861. S2CID 20847952.
- 1 2 Planqué, Robert; van den Berg, Jan Bouwe; Franks, Nigel R. (2010). "Recruitment Strategies and Colony Size in Ants". PLOS ONE. 5 (8): e11664. Bibcode:2010PLoSO...511664P. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0011664 . PMC 2915909 . PMID 20694195.
- ↑ Wheeler, W. M. (1907). "On certain modified hairs peculiar to the ants of arid regions". Biological Bulletin. 13 (4): 185–202. doi:10.2307/1535694. JSTOR 1535694.
- ↑ Corn, M. L. (1980). "Polymorphism and polyethism in the neotropical ant Cephalotes atratus (L.)". Insectes Sociaux. 27 (1): 29–42. doi:10.1007/bf02224519. S2CID 6813618.
- ↑ Delabie, Jacques H. C. (2001). "Trophobiosis Between Formicidae and Hemiptera (Sternorrhyncha and Auchenorrhyncha): an Overview" (PDF). Neotropical Entomology. 30 (4): 501–516. doi:10.1590/S1519-566X2001000400001.