Temporary prey storage along swarm columns of army ants: an adaptive strategy for successful raiding?
While pillaging the brood of other ant colonies, Eciton army ants accumulate prey in piles, or caches, along their foraging trails. Widely documented, these structures have historically been considered as by-products of heavy traffic or aborted relocations of the ants' temporary nest, or bivoua...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Journal Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2022
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/163012 |
| _version_ | 1811686147686924288 |
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| author | de Lima, Hilário Póvoas Teseo, Serafino de Lima, Raquel Leite Castro Ferreira-Châline, Ronara Souza Châline, Nicolas |
| author2 | School of Biological Sciences |
| author_facet | School of Biological Sciences de Lima, Hilário Póvoas Teseo, Serafino de Lima, Raquel Leite Castro Ferreira-Châline, Ronara Souza Châline, Nicolas |
| author_sort | de Lima, Hilário Póvoas |
| collection | NTU |
| description | While pillaging the brood of other ant colonies, Eciton army ants accumulate prey in piles, or caches, along their foraging trails. Widely documented, these structures have historically been considered as by-products of heavy traffic or aborted relocations of the ants' temporary nest, or bivouac. However, we recently observed that caches of the hook-jawed army ant, Eciton hamatum, appeared independently from heavy traffic or bivouac relocations. In addition, the flow of prey through caches varied based on the quantity of prey items workers transported. As this suggested a potential adaptive function, we developed agent-based simulations to compare raids of caching and non-caching virtual army ants. We found that caches increased the amount of prey that relatively low numbers of raiders were able to retrieve. However, this advantage became less conspicuous-and generally disappeared-as the number of raiders increased. Based on these results, we hypothesize that caches maximize the amount of prey that limited amounts of raiders can retrieve, especially as prey colonies coordinately evacuate their brood. In principle, caches also allow workers to safely collect multiple prey items and efficiently transport them to the bivouac. Further field observations are needed to test this and other hypotheses emerging from our study. |
| first_indexed | 2024-10-01T04:55:48Z |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | ntu-10356/163012 |
| institution | Nanyang Technological University |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-10-01T04:55:48Z |
| publishDate | 2022 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | ntu-10356/1630122022-11-16T00:15:18Z Temporary prey storage along swarm columns of army ants: an adaptive strategy for successful raiding? de Lima, Hilário Póvoas Teseo, Serafino de Lima, Raquel Leite Castro Ferreira-Châline, Ronara Souza Châline, Nicolas School of Biological Sciences Science::Biological sciences Army Ants Eciton While pillaging the brood of other ant colonies, Eciton army ants accumulate prey in piles, or caches, along their foraging trails. Widely documented, these structures have historically been considered as by-products of heavy traffic or aborted relocations of the ants' temporary nest, or bivouac. However, we recently observed that caches of the hook-jawed army ant, Eciton hamatum, appeared independently from heavy traffic or bivouac relocations. In addition, the flow of prey through caches varied based on the quantity of prey items workers transported. As this suggested a potential adaptive function, we developed agent-based simulations to compare raids of caching and non-caching virtual army ants. We found that caches increased the amount of prey that relatively low numbers of raiders were able to retrieve. However, this advantage became less conspicuous-and generally disappeared-as the number of raiders increased. Based on these results, we hypothesize that caches maximize the amount of prey that limited amounts of raiders can retrieve, especially as prey colonies coordinately evacuate their brood. In principle, caches also allow workers to safely collect multiple prey items and efficiently transport them to the bivouac. Further field observations are needed to test this and other hypotheses emerging from our study. Nanyang Technological University A CNPq Productivity grant (PQ-2017 grant no. 311790/2017-8) to N.C.; a CAPES PROEX Psicologia Experimental 2016/1964 to N.C., H.P.d.L., R.S.F.-C., R.L.C.d.L. and PROCAD Amazônia; a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship (M408080000) from Nanyang Technological University to S.T. CNPq provided H.P.d.L.’s PhD scholarship. 2022-11-16T00:15:18Z 2022-11-16T00:15:18Z 2022 Journal Article de Lima, H. P., Teseo, S., de Lima, R. L. C., Ferreira-Châline, R. S. & Châline, N. (2022). Temporary prey storage along swarm columns of army ants: an adaptive strategy for successful raiding?. Biology Letters, 18(2), 20210440-. https://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2021.0440 1744-9561 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/163012 10.1098/rsbl.2021.0440 35135318 2-s2.0-85124332068 2 18 20210440 en M408080000 Biology Letters © 2022 The Author(s). Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved. |
| spellingShingle | Science::Biological sciences Army Ants Eciton de Lima, Hilário Póvoas Teseo, Serafino de Lima, Raquel Leite Castro Ferreira-Châline, Ronara Souza Châline, Nicolas Temporary prey storage along swarm columns of army ants: an adaptive strategy for successful raiding? |
| title | Temporary prey storage along swarm columns of army ants: an adaptive strategy for successful raiding? |
| title_full | Temporary prey storage along swarm columns of army ants: an adaptive strategy for successful raiding? |
| title_fullStr | Temporary prey storage along swarm columns of army ants: an adaptive strategy for successful raiding? |
| title_full_unstemmed | Temporary prey storage along swarm columns of army ants: an adaptive strategy for successful raiding? |
| title_short | Temporary prey storage along swarm columns of army ants: an adaptive strategy for successful raiding? |
| title_sort | temporary prey storage along swarm columns of army ants an adaptive strategy for successful raiding |
| topic | Science::Biological sciences Army Ants Eciton |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/163012 |
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