Site fidelity in foraging argentine ants (Hymenoptera : Formicidae)

摘要

Argentine ants, Linepithema humile (Mayr), have polydomous colonies that are frequently in close proximity to food resources in their foraging territory. Individual foragers returned to a specific feeding location repeatedly over 48 hours, showing a high degree of site fidelity. At 24-hours post treatment, 25.5% of the ants returning to the sucrose feeding station were marked with Fluorescent Brightner 28 (FB 28). At 48 hours, the percentage decreased to 11.7%. Workers mass recruited other ants from the colony and established strong recruitment trails to the new resource resulting in the decreased proportion of marked ants as time increased after the marker had been consumed. In addition to trail pheromones, other cues may be responsible for the high degree of site fidelity.