Elevational and geographic variation in army ant s

Authors: S O’Donnell M Kaspari A Kumar J Lattke S Powell

Publish Date: 2010/11/11

Volume: 58, Issue: 3, Pages: 293-298

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Abstract

Geographic and elevational variation in the local abundance of swarmraiding army ants has implications for the population dynamics of their prey as well as affecting the profitability of armyantfollowing behavior for birds Here we analyze systematically collected data on E burchellii and L praedator raid rates from geographically and elevationally wideranging sites from lowland to montane forests We show that raids of each species and of both species pooled reach peak densities at intermediate premontane elevations These patterns suggest that army ant swarm raids are relatively abundant in Neotropical montane forests Therefore a paucity of ant raids does not explain the absence of obligate antfollowing bird species particularly true antbirds Thamnophilidae from montane forests As army ant raids are relatively common at middle elevations opportunities exist for other montane bird taxa to exploit army ant raids as a food sourceWe conducted our field research under government research permits from Costa Rica Ecuador Panama and Venezuela and in accordance with the laws of the respective countries This project was supported by a University of Washington ALCOR Fellowship and an Organization for Tropical Studies PostCourse Award to AK University of Washington Royalty Research Fund and NSF grants IBN0347315 and IOS0923680 to SO’D and a National Geographic Society Grant in Aid of Research to MK

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