Prophylaxis with resin in wood ants
Section snippets
Study Population
The F. paralugubris study population is located near the Chalet à Roch (46°32′32″N, 06°11′08″E) in the Swiss Jura mountains and consists of hundreds of large mounds forming a supercolony (Chapuisat et al. 1997). The density of nests is very high, each mound contains many related queens and neighbouring mounds are interconnected by trails (Chapuisat & Keller 1999).
Preference experiment
A first set of cafeteria tests was performed in the field to examine whether workers prefer resin over twigs and stones. The
Preference Experiments
Wood ant workers preferred to collect some material over others in field cafeteria tests (Table 1). Overall, workers showed a strong preference for resin over twigs (mean mass ± SE: resin = 0.60 ± 0.04 g; twigs = 0.39 ± 0.03 g; t = −4.40, df = 95, P < 0.001) which in turn were preferred over stones (mean mass ± SE: stone = 0.21 ± 0.02 g; t = 5.67, df = 95, P < 0.001).
This preference for resin depended on the season as shown by the highly significant interaction between material type and season (Table 1). In spring, workers
Discussion
Wood ants show a strong preference for conifer resin over other building materials under both field and laboratory conditions. This active choice and preference for resin explains the huge quantities of solidified conifer resin found in some wood ant mounds in various geographical areas (up to 20 kg per mound; Réaumur, 1928, Lenoir et al., 1999, Christe et al., 2003).
The demonstration of an active choice for conifer resin by wood ants fulfils an important criterion for adaptive medication (
Acknowledgments
We thank Christophe Hug for help in the field, Jonathan Yearsley and two anonymous referees for their useful comments on the manuscript and the Centre de Conservation de la Faune of the canton de Vaud for permission to collect ants. This research was supported by Grants 3100A0-104118 and 3100AO-108263 from the Swiss National Science Foundation.
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