Linking traits of foraging animals to spatial patterns of plants: Social and solitary ants generate opposing patterns of surviving seeds

Ecology Letters

Volumn 11, Issue 3, 2008, Pages 224-234

  Avgar, Tal ^a   Giladi, Itamar ^b   Nathan, Ran ^a  

^a HEBREW UNIVERSITY OF JERUSALEM   (Israel)

^b BEN GURION UNIVERSITY OF THE NEGEV   (Israel)

Author keywords

Density dependence; Foraging strategy; Harvester ants; Janzen Connell hypothesis; Plant recruitment; Seed dispersal; Seed predation; Social behaviour; Spatial patterns

Indexed keywords

ANT; COMMUNITY DYNAMICS; DENSITY DEPENDENCE; FORAGING BEHAVIOR; POPULATION STRUCTURE; SEED DISPERSAL; SEED PREDATION; SOCIAL BEHAVIOR; SPECIES DIVERSITY;

ANIMAL; ANT; APPETITE; ARTICLE; BIOLOGICAL MODEL; ECOSYSTEM; PHYSIOLOGY; PLANT SEED; REGRESSION ANALYSIS; RICE;

ANIMALS; ANTS; APPETITIVE BEHAVIOR; ECOSYSTEM; MODELS, BIOLOGICAL; ORYZA SATIVA; REGRESSION ANALYSIS; SEEDS;

ANIMALIA; FORMICIDAE;

EID: 38649103829     PISSN: 1461023X     EISSN: 14610248     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2007.01140.x     Document Type: Article

References (50)

1. Albert, M.J., Escudero, A. Iriondo, J.M. (2005). Assessing ant seed predation in threatened plants: a case study. Acta Oecol. Int. J. Ecol., 28, 213 220.
2. Augspurger, C.K. Kitajima, K. (1992). Experimental studies of seedling recruitment from contrasting seed distributions. Ecology, 73, 1270 1284.
3. Avgar, T. 2007). Linking Foraging Traits of Seed-Eating Ants to Spatial Patterns of Surviving Seeds. MSc Thesis. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.
4. Azcarate, F.M., Kovacs, E. Peco, B. (2007). Microclimatic conditions regulate surface activity in harvester ants Messor barbarus. J. Insect Behav., 20, 315 329.
5. Borchert, M.I. Jain, S.K. (1978). Effect of rodent seed predation on 4 species of California annual grasses. Oecologia, 33, 101 113.
6. Connell, J.H. (1971). On the role of natural enemies in preventing competitive exclusion in some marine animals and rain forest trees. In : Dynamics of Populations (eds den Boer, P.J. Gradwell, G.R.). PUDOC, Wageningen, the Netherlands, pp. 298 312.
7. Crist, T.O. MacMahon, J.A. (1992). Harvester ant foraging and shrub steppe seeds: interactions of seed resources and seed use. Ecology, 73, 1768 1779.
8. Davidson, D.W. (1977). Foraging ecology and community organization in desert seed-eating ants. Ecology, 58, 725 737.
9. Delsinne, T., Roisin, Y. Leponce, M. (2007). Spatial and temporal foraging overlaps in a Chacoan ground-foraging ant assemblage. J. Arid Environ., 71, 29 44.
10. Fellers, J.H. (1987). Interference and exploitation in a guild of woodland ants. Ecology, 68, 1466 1478.
11. Fenner, M. Thompson, K. (2005). The Ecology of Seeds. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
12. Glasser, J.W. (1979). The role of predation in shaping and maintaining the structure of communities. Am. Nat., 113, 631 641.
13. Goldberg, D.E. (1985). Effects of soil-pH, competition, and seed predation on the distributions of tree species. Ecology, 66, 503 511.
14. Gordon, D.M. (1991). Behavioral flexibility and the foraging ecology of seed-eating ants. Am. Nat., 138, 379 411.
15. Gordon, D.M. (1993). The spatial scale of seed collection by harvester ants. Oecologia, 95, 479 487.
16. Guarino, R., Ferrario, B. Mossa, L. (2005). A stochastic model of seed dispersal pattern to assess seed predation by ants in annual dry grasslands. Plant Ecol., 178, 225 235.
17. Harper, J.L. (1977). Population Biology of Plants. Academic Press, London.
18. Honek, A., Martinkova, Z. Saska, P. (2005). Post-dispersal predation of Taraxacum officinale (dandelion) seed. J. Ecol., 93, 345 352.
19. Hubbell, S.P. (1980). Seed predation and the coexistence of tree species in tropical forests. Oikos, 35, 214 229.
20. Hulme, P.E. (1993). Post-dispersal seed predation by small mammals. Symp. Zool. Soc. Lond., 65, 269 287.
21. Hulme, P.E. (1998). Post-dispersal seed predation and seed bank persistence. Seed Sci. Res., 8, 513 519.
22. Hulme, P.E. Kollmann, J. (2004). Seed predator guilds, spatial variation in post-dispersal seed predation and potential effects on plant demography: a temperate perspective. In : Seed Fate: Predation, Dispersal and Seeding Establishment (eds Forget, P.M., Lambert, J.E., Hulme, P.E. Vander Wall, S.B.). CAB International, Wallingford, UK, pp. 9 30.
23. Human, K.G. Gordon, D.M. (1996). Exploitation and interference competition between the invasive Argentine ant, Linepithema humile, and native ant species. Oceologia, 105, 405 412.
24. Hyatt, L.A., Rosenberg, M.S., Howard, T.G., Bole, G., Fang, W., Anastasia, J. et al. (2003). The distance dependence prediction of the Janzen-Connell hypothesis: a meta-analysis. Oikos, 103, 590 602.
25. Jaffe, K. Deneubourg, J.L. (1992). On foraging, recruitment systems and optimum number of scouts in eusocial colonies. Insectes Sociaux, 39, 201 213.
26. Janzen, D.H. (1970). Herbivores and the number of tree species in tropical forests. Am. Nat., 104, 501 528.
27. Johnson, R.A. (2000). Seed-harvester ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) of North America: an overview of ecology and biogeography. Sociobiology, 36, 89 102.
28. Johnson, L.K., Hubbell, S.P. Feener, D.H. (1987). Defense of food-supply by eusocial colonies. Am. Zool., 27, 347 358.
29. Kalbfleisch, J.D. Prentice, R.L. (2002). The Statistical Analysis of Failure Time Data, 2nd edn. John Wiley, New York.
30. Kelt, D.A., Meserve, P.L., Forister, M.L., Nabors, L.K. Gutierrez, J.R. (2004). Seed predation by birds and small mammals in semiarid Chile. Oikos, 104, 133 141.
31. Lebrun, E.G. Feener, D.H. (2007). When trade-offs interact: balance of terror enforces dominance discovery trade-off in a local ant assemblage. J. Anim. Ecol., 76, 58 64.
32. MacMahon, J.A., Mull, J.F. Crist, T.O. (2000). Harvester ants (Pogonomyrmex spp.): their community and ecosystem influences. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Syst., 31, 265 291.
33. Manly, B.F.G. (1997). Randomization, Bootstrap and Monte-Carlo Methods in Biology. Chapman & Hall, London.
34. McCanny, S.J. (1985). Alternatives in parent-offspring relationships in plants. Oikos, 45, 148 149.
35. McGlynne, T.P. Kirksey, S.E. (2000). The effects of food presentation and microhabitat upon resource monopoly in a ground-foraging ant (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) community. Rev. Biol. Trop., 48, 629 641.
36. Nathan, R. Casagrandi, R. (2004). A simple mechanistic model of seed dispersal, predation and plant establishment: Janzen-Connell and beyond. J. Ecol., 92, 733 746.
37. Nathan, R. Muller-Landau, H.C. (2000). Spatial patterns of seed dispersal, their determinants and consequences for recruitment. Trends Ecol. Evol., 15, 278 285.
38. Nathan, R., Safriel, U.N., Noy-Meir, I. Schiller, G. (2000). Spatiotemporal variation in seed dispersal and recruitment near and far from Pinus halepensis trees. Ecology, 81, 2156 2169.
39. Orrock, J.L., Levey, D.J., Danielson, B.J. Damschen, E.I. (2006). Seed predation, not seed dispersal, explains the landscape-level abundance of an early-successional plant. J. Ecol., 94, 838 845.
40. Platt, W.J. (1975). Colonization and formation of equilibrium plant species associations on badger disturbances in a tall-grass prairie. Ecol. Monogr., 45, 285 305.
41. Silverman, J. Roulston, T.H. (2003). Retrieval of granular bait by the Argentine ant (Hymenoptera: Formicidae): effect of clumped versus scattered dispersion patterns. J. Econ. Entomol., 96, 871 874.
42. Steinberger, Y., Leschner, H. Shmida, A. (1991). Chaff piles of harvester ant (Messor spp) nests in a desert ecosystm. Insectes Sociaux, 38, 241 250.
43. Traniello, J.F.A. (1989). Foraging strategies of ants. Annu. Rev. Entomol., 34, 191 210.
44. Walther, B.A. Gosler, A.G. (2001). The effects of food availability and distance to protective cover on the winter foraging behaviour of tits (Aves: Parus). Oecologia, 129, 312 320.
45. Warburg, I. (1996). Directional fidelity and patch fidelity during individual foraging in ants of the species Messor arenarius. Israel J. Zool., 42, 251 260.
46. Weier, J.A. Feener, D.H. (1995). Foraging in the seed-harvester ant genus Pogonomyrmex: are energy costs important? Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol., 36, 291 300.
47. Wilby, A. Shachak, M. (2000). Harvester ant response to spatial and temporal heterogeneity in seed availability: patterns in the process of granivory. Oecologia, 125, 495 503.
48. Wilby, A. Shachak, M. (2004). Shrubs, granivores and annual plant community stability in an arid ecosystem. Oikos, 106, 209 216.
49. Wyatt, J.L. Silman, M.R. (2004). Distance-dependence in two Amazonian palms: effects of spatial and temporal variation in seed predator communities. Oecologia, 140, 26 35.
50. Zar, J.H. (1996). Biostatistical Analysis, 3rd edn. Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ.