Does body size of neotropical ant species influence their recruitment speed?

Biota Neotropica

Bruno Spacek Godoy²  Lucas Marques De Camargos¹ 

[1] ,Universidade Federal do Pará Núcleo de Ciências Agrárias e Desenvolvimento Rural Belém PA ,Brasil

关键词: formicidae;    foraging behavior;    phylogenetic contrasts;    social insects;    Amazon;    formicidae;    comportamento de forrageio;    contrastes filogenéticos;    insetos sociais;    Amazônia;   

DOI  :  10.1590/S1676-06032013000100010

来源: SciELO

【 摘 要 】

Ants are one of the most important animal groups in tropical forests because of its abundance and number of species. An important characteristic of the group is the eusociality, which allows the occurrence of a recruitment behavior when food resource is found. However, there are two main questions regarding this behavior: (i) the recruitment is a product of environmental or phylogenetic pressures, and (ii) the recruitment speed is related to the body size of the ant species. In this work we addressed these two questions using 17 species of neotropical ants, in the Amazonic lowland dense rain forest. According to results, recruitment behavior is related to ant size, where smaller species exhibit this trait when finding a protein resource. However, species size is not important in recruitment speed, which suggests that speed can be best explained by the type of food resources needed in the ant colony.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
 All the contents of this journal, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License