Authors: Alain Dejean Julien Grangier Céline Leroy Jerôme Orivel
Publish Date: 2008/10/03
Volume: 96, Issue: 1, Pages: 57-63
Abstract
In studying the ant genus Azteca a Neotropical group of arboreal species we aimed to determine the extent to which the ants use predation and/or aggressiveness to protect their host plants from defoliating insects We compared a territorially dominant cartonnester Azteca chartifex and three plantant species Azteca alfari and Azteca ovaticeps are associated with the myrmecophyte Cecropia Cecropiaceae and their colonies shelter in its hollow branches whereas Azteca bequaerti is associated with Tococa guianensis Melastomataceae and its colonies shelter in leaf pouches situated at the base of the laminas Whereas A bequaerti workers react to the vibrations transmitted by the lamina when an alien insect lands on a leaf making it unnecessary for them to patrol their plant the workers of the three other species rather discover prey by contact The workers of all four species use a predatory behaviour involving spreadeagling alien insects after recruiting nestmates at short range and in some cases at long range Because A alfari and A ovaticeps discard part of the insects they kill we deduced that the workers’ predatory behaviour and territorial aggressiveness combine in the biotic defence of their host treeWe are grateful to Jacques HC Delabie Roy R Snelling and John T Longino for the identification of different samples of our ants and to Andrea Dejean for proofreading the manuscript This work was supported by the Programme Amazonie II of the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique project 2ID and the Programme Convergence 2007–2013 Région Guyane from the European Community project DEGA
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