Foraging in highly dynamic environments: Leaf-cutting ants adjust foraging trail networks to pioneer plant availability

Entomologia Experimentalis et Applicata

Volumn 147, Issue 2, 2013, Pages 110-119

  Silva, Paulo Sávio Damásio ^a,e   Bieber, Ana Gabriela Delgado ^a   Knoch, Tobias Aurelius ^b,c   Tabarelli, Marcelo ^a   Leal, Inara Roberta ^a   Wirth, Rainer ^d  

^a FEDERAL UNIVERSITY OF PERNAMBUCO   (Brazil)

^b ERASMUS MEDICAL CENTER   (Netherlands)

^c GERMAN CANCER RESEARCH CENTER DKFZ   (Germany)

^d Rheinland Pfälzische Technische Universität Kaiserslautern Landau   (Germany)

^e UNIVERSIDADE ESTADUAL DO SUDOESTE DA BAHIA   (Brazil)

Author keywords

Atlantic forest; Atta cephalotes; Attini; Food plant preference; Formicidae; Fractal dimension; Herbivory; Hymenoptera; Optimal foraging theory; Spatiotemporal variability of resource environments; Trail architecture

Indexed keywords

ANT; BEHAVIORAL RESPONSE; ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE; FOOD PREFERENCE; FORAGING BEHAVIOR; HERBIVORY; LANDSCAPE CHANGE; OPTIMUM FORAGING THEORY; PALATABILITY; PIONEER SPECIES; REGENERATION; RESOURCE AVAILABILITY; SECONDARY FOREST;

ATLANTIC FOREST;

ATTA; ATTA CEPHALOTES; ATTINI; FORMICIDAE; HYMENOPTERA;

EID: 84876176570     PISSN: 00138703     EISSN: 15707458     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/eea.12050     Document Type: Article

References (59)

1. Bragança MAL, Tonhasca A & Della Lucia TMC (1998) Reduction in the foraging activity of the leaf-cutting ant Atta sexdens caused by the phorid Neodohrniphora sp. Entomologia Experimentalis et Applicata 89: 305-311.
2. Brown JS (2000) Foraging ecology of animals in response to heterogeneous environments. The Ecological Consequences of Environmental Heterogeneity (ed. by MJ Hutchings, EA John & AJA Stewart ), pp. 181-214. Blackwell, Oxford, UK.
3. Brown MJF & Gordon DM (2000) How resources and encounters affect the distribution of foraging activity in a seed-harvesting ant. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 47: 195-203.
4. Carroll CR & Janzen D (1973) Ecology of foraging by ants. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 4: 231-257.
5. Corrêa MM, Bieber AGD, Wirth R & Leal IR (2005) Occurrence of Atta cephalotes (L.) (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) in Alagoas, Northeastern Brazil. Neotropical Entomology 34: 695-698.
6. Corrêa MM, Silva PSD, Wirth R, Tabarelli M & Leal IR (2010) How leaf-cutting ants impact forests: drastic nest effects on light environment and plant assemblages. Oecologia 162: 103-115.
7. Dicke M & Burrough PA (1988) Using fractal dimensions for characterizing tortuosity of animal trails. Physiological Entomology 13: 393-398.
8. Dohm C, Leal IR, Tabarelli M, Meyer ST & Wirth R (2011) Leaf-cutting ants proliferate in the Amazon: an expected response to forest edge? Journal of Tropical Ecology 27: 645-649.
9. Falcão PF, Pinto SRR, Wirth R & Leal IR (2011) Edge-induced narrowing of dietary diversity in leaf-cutting ants. Bulletin of Entomological Research 101: 305-311.
10. Farji-Brener AG (2001) Why are leaf-cutting ants more common in early secondary forests than in old-growth tropical forests? An evaluation of the palatable forage hypothesis. Oikos 92: 169-177.
11. Farji-Brener AG & Sierra C (1998) The role of trunk trails in the scouting activity of the leaf-cutting ant Atta cephalotes. Ecoscience 5: 271-274.
12. Farji-Brener AG, Barrantes G, Laverde O, Fierro-Calderón K, Bascopé F & López A (2007) Fallen branches as part of leaf-cutting ant trails: their role in resource discovery and leaf transport rates in Atta cephalotes. Biotropica 39: 211-215.
13. Ford RG (1983) Home range in a patchy environment: optimal foraging predictions. American Zoologist 23: 315-326.
14. Fowler HG, Forti LC & di Romagnano LFT (1990) Methods for the evaluation of leaf-cutting ant harvest. Applied Myrmecology - A World Perspective (ed. by RK Vander Meer, K Jaffe & A Cedeno ), pp. 228-241. Westview Press, Boulder, CO, USA.
15. Herz H, Beyschlag W & Hölldobler B (2007) Herbivory rate of leaf-cutting ants in a tropical moist forest in Panama at the population and ecosystem scales. Biotropica 39: 482-488.
16. Hölldobler B & Wilson EO (2011) The Leafcutter Ants: Civilization by Instinct. WW Norton & Company, London, UK.
17. Howard JJ (1988) Leaf-cutting ant diet selection: relative influence of leaf-chemistry and physical features. Ecology 69: 250-260.
18. Howard JJ (2001) Costs of trail construction and maintenance in the leaf-cutting ant Atta colombica. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 49: 348-356.
19. IBGE (1985) Atlas Nacional do Brasil: Região Nordeste. Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
20. Kempf W (1972) Catálogo abreviado das formigas da Região Neotropical (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Studia Entomologica 15: 3-344.
21. Knoch TA (2002) Approaching the Three-Dimensional Organization of the Human Genome: Structural-, Scaling- and Dynamic-Properties in the Simulation of Interphase Chromosomes and Cell Nuclei, Long-range Correlations in Complete Genomes, In Vivo Quantification of the Chromatin Distribution, Construct Conversions in Simultaneous Co-Transfections. TAK Press, Mannheim, Germany.
22. Kost C, de Oliveira EG, Knoch TA & Wirth R (2005) Spatio-temporal permanence and plasticity of foraging trails in young and mature leaf-cutting ant colonies (Atta spp.). Journal of Tropical Ecology 21: 677-688.
23. Kost C, Tremmel M & Wirth R (2011) Do leaf-cutting ants cut undetected? Testing the effect of ant-induced plant defences on foraging decisions in Atta colombica. PLoS ONE 6: e22340.
24. Krebs Jr. & Davies NB (1993) Behavioural Ecology: An Evolutionary Approach, 3rd edn. Blackwell, Oxford, UK.
25. Laurance WF, Ferreira LV, Rankin-de-Merona JM & Laurance SG (1998) Rain forest fragmentation and the dynamics of amazonian tree communities. Ecology 79: 2032-2040.
26. Laurance WF, Nascimento HEM, Laurance SG, Andrade AC, Fearnside PM et al. (2006) Rain forest fragmentation and the proliferation of successional trees. Ecology 87: 469-482.
27. Lôbo D, Leão T, Melo FPL, Santos AMM & Tabarelli M (2011) Forest fragmentation drives Atlantic forest of northeastern Brazil to biotic homogenization. Diversity and Distributions 17: 287-296.
28. Logan M (2010) Biostatistical Design and Analysis Using R: A Practical Guide. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, UK.
29. MacArthur RH & Pianka ER (1966) On optimal use of a patchy environment. American Naturalist 100: 603-609.
30. Mandelbrot BB (1983) The Fractal Geometry of Nature. Freeman and Company, New York, NY, USA.
31. Meyer ST, Roces F & Wirth R (2006) Selecting the drought stressed: effects of plant stress on intraspecific and within-plant herbivory patterns of the leaf-cutting ant Atta colombica. Functional Ecology 20: 973-981.
32. Meyer ST, Leal IR & Wirth R (2009) Persisting hyperabundance of leaf-cutting ants (Atta spp.) at the edge of an old Atlantic forest fragment. Biotropica 41: 711-716.
33. Meyer ST, Leal IR, Tabarelli M & Wirth R (2011) Ecosystem engineering by leaf-cutting ants: nests of Atta cephalotes drastically alter forest structure and microclimate. Ecological Entomology 36: 14-24.
34. Nichols-Orians CM & Schultz JC (1989) Leaf-toughness affects leaf harvesting by the leaf-cutter ant, Atta cephalotes (L.) (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Biotropica 21: 80-83.
35. Oliveira MA, Grillo AS & Tabarelli M (2004) Forest edge in the Brazilian Atlantic forest: drastic changes in tree species assemblages. Oryx 38: 389-394.
36. Orr MR (1992) Parasitic flies (Diptera, Phoridae) influence foraging rhythms and caste division of labor in the leaf-cutter ant, Atta cephalotes (Hymenoptera, Formicidae). Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 30: 395-402.
37. Peñaloza C & Farji-Brener AG (2003) The importance of tree-fall gaps as foraging sites for leaf-cutting ants depends on forest age. Journal of Tropical Ecology 19: 603-605.
38. Pyke G, Pulliam HR & Charnov GL (1977) Optimal foraging: a selective review of theory and tests. Quarterly Review of Biology 52: 137-154.
39. Ribeiro-Neto JD, Pinho BX, Meyer ST, Wirth R & Leal IR (2012) Drought stress drives intraspecific choice of food plants by Atta leaf-cutting ants. Entomologia Experimentalis et Applicata 144: 209-215.
40. Rockwood LL (1976) Plant selection and foraging patterns in two species of leaf-cutting ants (Atta). Ecology 57: 48-61.
41. Santos BA, Peres CA, Grillo A, Alves-Costa CP & Tabarelli M (2008) Drastic erosion in functional attributes of tree assemblages in Atlantic forest fragments of northeastern Brazil. Biological Conservation 141: 249-260.
42. Shepherd JD (1982) Trunk trails and the searching strategy of a leaf-cutter ant, Atta colombica. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 11: 77-84.
43. Shepherd JD (1985) Adjusting foraging effort to resources in adjacent colonies of the leaf-cutter ant, Atta colombica. Biotropica 17: 245-252.
44. Silva PSD, Bieber AGD, Leal IR, Wirth R & Tabarelli M (2009) Decreasing abundance of leaf-cutting ants across a chronosequence of advancing Atlantic forest regeneration. Journal of Tropical Ecology 25: 223-227.
45. Sokal RR & Rohlf FJ (1995) Biometry, 3rd edn. WH Freeman, New York, NY, USA.
46. Tabarelli M, Lopes AV & Peres CA (2008) Edge-effects drive tropical forest fragments towards an early-successional system. Biotropica 40: 657-661.
47. Tavares S, Paiva FAF, Tavares EJS, Neves MA & Lima JLS (1971) Nova contribuição para o estudo preliminar das matas remanescentes do estado de Alagoas. Boletim de Recursos Naturais 9: 5-122.
48. Terborgh J, Lopez L, Nunez VP, Rao M, Shahabuddin G et al. (2001) Ecological meltdown in predator-free forest fragments. Science 294: 1923-1926.
49. Traniello JFA (1989) Foraging strategies of ants. Annual Review of Entomology 34: 191-210.
50. Urbas P, Araújo MV Jr, Leal IR & Wirth R (2007) Cutting more from cut forests: edge effects on foraging and herbivory of leaf-cutting ants in Brazil. Biotropica 39: 489-495.
51. Vasconcelos HL (1990) Foraging activity of two species of leaf-cutting ants (Atta) in a primary forest of the central Amazon. Insectes Sociaux 37: 131-146.
52. Vasconcelos HL & Cherrett JM (1995) Changes in leaf-cutting ant populations (Formicidae, Attini) after the clearing of mature forest in Brazilian Amazonia. Studies on Neotropical Fauna and Environment 30: 107-113.
53. Vasconcelos HL & Fowler HG (1990) Foraging and fungal substrate selection by leaf-cutting ants. Applied Myrmecology - A World Perspective (ed. by RK Vander Meer, K Jaffe & A Cedeno ), pp. 411-419. Westview Press, Boulder, CO, USA.
54. Veloso HP, Rangel Filho ALR & Lima JCA (1991) Classificação da Vegetação Brasileira, Adaptada a um Sistema Universal. Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
55. Wilkinson L (1996) Systat, Version 6.0. SPSS, Chicago, IL, USA.
56. Wirth R, Beyschlag W, Ryel RJ & Hölldobler B (1997) Annual foraging of the leaf-cutting ant Atta colombica in a semideciduous rain forest in Panama. Journal of Tropical Ecology 13: 741-757.
57. Wirth R, Beyschlag W, Ryel R, Herz H & Hölldobler B (2003) The Herbivory of Leaf-cutting Ants. A Case Study on Atta colombica in the Tropical Rainforest of Panama. Springer, Berlin, Germany.
58. Wirth R, Meyer ST, Almeida WR, Araujo MV, Barbosa VS & Leal IR (2007) Increasing densities of leaf-cutting ants (Atta spp.) with proximity to the edge in a Brazilian Atlantic forest. Journal of Tropical Ecology 23: 501-505.
59. Wirth R, Meyer ST, Leal IR & Tabarelli M (2008) Plant-herbivore interactions at the forest edge. Progress in Botany 69: 423-448.