Foraging ecology of the thermophilic Australian desert ant, Melophorus bagoti

Australian Journal of Zoology

Volumn 53, Issue 5, 2005, Pages 301-311

  Muser, Barbara ^a   Sommer, Stefan ^b   Wolf, Harald ^a   Wehner, Rüdiger ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ULM   (Germany)

^b UNIVERSITY OF ZURICH   (Switzerland)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

AGGRESSION; ANT; COLONY FOUNDING; DIURNAL VARIATION; FORAGING BEHAVIOR; MORTALITY; SCAVENGER; SOIL TEMPERATURE; THERMOPHILY;

AUSTRALASIA; AUSTRALIA;

EID: 33745622701     PISSN: 0004959X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1071/ZO05023     Document Type: Article

References (32)

1. Andersen, A. N. (2000). 'The Ants of Northern Australia: a Guide to the Monsoonal Fauna.' (CSIRO Publishing: Melbourne.)
2. Andersen, A. N. (2003). Ant biodiversity in arid Australia: productivity, species richness and community organisation. Records of the South Australian Museum Monograph Series 7, 79-92.
3. Andersen, A. N., and Patel, A. D. (1994). Meat ants as dominant members of Australian ant communities: an experimental test of their influence on the foraging success and forager abundance of other species. Oecologia 98, 15-24. doi:10.1007/BF00326085
4. Batschelet, E. (1981). 'Circular Statistics in Biology.' (Academic Press: New York.)
5. Briese, D. T., and Macauley, B. J. (1980). Temporal structure of an ant community in semi-arid Australia. Australian Journal of Ecology 5, 121-134.
6. Carroll, C. R., and Janzen, D. H. (1973). Ecology of foraging by ants. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 4, 231-257. doi:10.1146/annurev.es.04. 110173.001311
7. Cerdá, X. (2001). Behavioural and physiological traits to thermal stress tolerance in two Spanish desert ants. Etología 9, 15-27.
8. Cerdá, X., and Retana, J. (2000). Alternative strategies by thermophilic ants to cope with extreme heat: individual versus colony level traits. Oikos 89, 155-163. doi:10.1034/j.1600-0706.2000.890117.x
9. Christian, K. A., and Morton, S. R. (1992). Extreme thermophilia in a central Australian ant, Melophorus bagoti. Physiological Zoology 65, 885-905.
10. Clark, P. J., and Evans, F. C. (1954). Distance to nearest neighbor as a measure of spatial relationships in populations. Ecology 35, 445-453.
11. Conway, J. R. (1992). Notes on the excavation of a nest of Melophorus bagoti Lubbock in the Northern Territory, Australia (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Journal of the Australian Entomological Society 31, 247-248.
12. Dillier, F.-X., and Wehner, R. (2004). Spatio-temporal patterns of colony distribution in monodomous and polydomous species of North African desert ants, genus Cataglyphis. Insectes Sociaux 51, 186-196. doi:10.1007/s00040-003-0722-0
13. Gehring, W. J., and Wehner, R. (1995). Heat shock protein synthesis and thermotolerance in Cataglyphis, an ant from the Sahara Desert. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 92, 2994-2998.
14. Harkness, R., and Wehner, R. (1977). Cataglyphis. Endeavour 1, 115-121. doi:10.1016/0160-9327(77)90169-7
15. Hoffmann, B. D. (1998). Thermophilia in a tropical Australian ant of the Melophorus aeneovirens (Lowne) species-group (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Australian Journal of Entomology 37, 162-167.
16. Kohler, M., and Wehner, R. (2005). Idiosyncratic route-based memories in desert ants, Melophorus bagoti: how do they interact with pathintegration vectors? Neurobiology of Learning and Memory 83, 1-12. doi:10.1016/j.nlm.2004. 05.011
17. Lighton, J. R. B., and Wehner, R. (1993). Ventilation and respiratory metabolism in the thermophylic desert ant, Cataglyphis bicolor (Hymenoptera, Formicidae). Journal of Comparative Physiology. B, Biochemical, Systemic, and Environmental Physiology 163, 11-17. doi:10.1007/BF00309660
18. Marsh, A. C. (1985a). Thermal responses and temperature tolerance in a diurnal desert ant, Ocymyrmex barbiger. Physiological Zoology 58, 629-636.
19. Marsh, A. C. (1985b). Microclimatic factors influencing foraging patterns and success of the thermophilic desert ant, Ocymyrmex barbiger. Insectes Sociaux 32, 286-296.
20. Marsh, A. C. (1987). Adaptations of myrmicine ant genus Ocymyrmex for exploiting a hot arid environment. In 'Chemistry and Biology of Social Insects'. (Eds J. Eder and H. Rembold.) p. 542. (J. Peperny: München.)
21. Marsh, A. C. (1990). The biology and ecology of Namib Desert ants. In 'Namib Ecology: 25 Years of Namib Research'. (Ed. M. K. Seely.) pp. 109-114. Transvaal Museum Monograph No. 7. (Transvaal Museum: Pretoria.)
22. Schmid-Hempel, P. (1983). Foraging ecology and colony structure of two sympatric species of desert ants Cataglyphis bicolor and Cataglyphis albicans. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Zürich.
23. Schmid-Hempel, P., and Schmid-Hempel, R. (1984). Life duration and turnover of foragers in the ant Cataglyphis bicolor (Hymenoptera, Formicidae). Insectes Sociaux 31, 345-360.
24. Shattuck, S. O. (1999). 'Australian Ants. Their Biology and Identification.' (CSIRO Publishing: Melbourne.)
25. Shattuck, S. O., and Barnett, N. J. (2001). 'Australian Ants Online.' Available from http://www.ento.csiro.au/science/ants [Verified 8 August 2005].
26. Sinclair, D. F. (1985). On tests of spatial randomness using mean nearest neighbor distance. Ecology 66, 1084-1085.
27. Traniello, J. F. A. (1989). Foraging strategies of ants. Annual Review of Entomology 34, 191-210. doi:10.1146/annurev.en.34.010189. 001203
28. Turner, R., Lighton, J. R., and Turner, J. S. (2000). Critical thermal maximum of the African ant, Ocymyrmex sp.: possibility of a new record prompts a review of methodologies. Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology. B, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 126(Suppl.), S96. doi:10.1016/S0305-0491(00) 80190-X
29. Wehner, R. (1987). Spatial organization of foraging behavior in individually searching desert ants, Cataglyphis (Sahara Desert) and Ocymyrmex (Namib Desert). In 'From Individual to Collective Behavior in Social Insects'. (Eds J. M. Pasteels and J.-L. Deneubourg.) pp. 15-42. (Birkhäuser: Basel.)
30. Wehner, R., Harkness, R. D., and Schmid-Hempel, P. (1983). Foraging strategies in individually searching ants, Cataglyphis bicolor (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). In 'Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Mainz, Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Klasse'. (Ed. M. Lindauer.)pp. 1-79, two maps. (Fischer: Stuttgart.)
31. Wehner, R., Marsh, A. C., and Wehner, S. (1992). Desert ants on a thermal tightrope. Nature 357, 586-587. doi:10.1038/357586a0
32. Wehner, R., Meier, C., and Zollikofer, C. (2004). The ontogeny of foraging behaviour in desert ants, Cataglyphis bicolor. Ecological Entomology 29, 240-250. doi:10.1111/j.0307-6946.2004.00591.x