Rareness of certain Mediterranean ant species: fact or artifact?

Espadaler, Xavier; López-Soria, Luis

doi:10.1007/bf01241872

Cited by 28 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…This contrasts with P. xene, in which dispersal of the newly mated queens is strongly dependent on the host workers since the young parasitic queens dealate in the nest where they mate, then follow workers and host queens leaving the mother nest to establish a new colony by budding (Passera, 1964). Dispersal on the wing is excep-tional in this species (Espadaler and Lopez-Soria, 1991). Breeding and dispersal of the parasite therefore require a large worker force.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Social parasitism in ants: effects of the inquiline parasite Plagiolepis xene St. on queen distribution and worker production of its host Plagiolepis pygmaea Latr.

Passera¹,

Gilbert²,

Aron³

2001

Insectes soc.

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Summary. The ant Plagiolepis pygmaea forms polygynous (several mated queens per colony) and polydomous (multiple nests per colony) colonies that may be parasitized by the workerless social parasite Plagiolepis xene. Earlier laboratory experiments showed that P. xene strongly restricts host worker production (Passera, 1972); however, this negative effect seems not to occur under natural conditions. Here, we explored the hypothesis that, in infested natural colonies of P. pygmaea, parasite queens affect the distribution of the host queens resulting in the latter inhabiting unparasitized nests of the colony at the period of egg-laying. Our field studies show that the presence of the inquiline ant P. xene influences host queen distribution, with a higher level of dispersion within parasitized colonies. In winter, there is a positive association between the number of host queens and the number of parasites in queenright nests. Such a relationship does not occur in summer, so that when egg-laying reaches its maximum activity most queens of the host are found in unparasitized nests. Moreover, the proportion of queenright nests parasitized was dramatically lower than in the winter. A detailed comparison of worker production between parasitized and unparasitized field colonies reveals no difference. Experiments show that reduced worker production in parasitized nests reared under laboratory conditions results from oophagy by the parasitic queens. Overall, our data suggest that the segregation of the host and parasite queens in different nests at the time of egg-laying results in part from host queens avoiding inhabiting parasitized nests to reduce oophagy by the parasite. We discuss the behavioral and ecological implications of our findings.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Social parasitism in ants: effects of the inquiline parasite Plagiolepis xene St. on queen distribution and worker production of its host Plagiolepis pygmaea Latr.

Passera¹,

Gilbert²,

Aron³

2001

Insectes soc.

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“…Hypoponera opaciceps and P. membranifera, two hypogaeic species, were collected only through Winkler extractor method, in respectively one and five locations. The presence of P. membranifera in urban habitats is not unusual, and this species was previously recorded from anthropogenic habitats such as public parks in the southern part of Spain (Espadaler and López-Soria 1991;Ordonez-Urbano et al 2008). Finally, we failed to find Tetramorium bicarinatum, known previously from only one location near greenhouses (Nuhn 1977;Nuhn and Wright 1979) that were destroyed several years ago.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

“…In part this is likely due to the focus of urban studies of ants. Most studies focus on standardized ecological sampling of ants, but such sampling while useful for comparative purposes is unlikely to find all of the species present (see Espadaler and López-Soria 1991). For example, Menke et al (2011) sampled Raleigh using a standardized method and found just 53 % of the species we encountered on campus.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

High diversity in an urban habitat: are some animal assemblages resilient to long-term anthropogenic change?

2014

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Urbanization is thought to lead to the loss of biodiversity both because of habitat disturbance and the increased abundance of invasive species. However, most studies of biodiversity in cities are conducted on a short time scale, usually less than 3 years, and so miss the long-term dynamics of communities inhabiting these ecosystems. Here we use a study performed in the early 70's on North Carolina State University (Raleigh, USA) as a baseline to evaluate the long term effects of disturbance and introduced species on native ant communities. Ant species were sampled almost 40 years later using a variety of sampling techniques in order to maximize species collection. Our results show that while the number of exotic species increased, including three major invasive ants, native ant species richness remained high. Furthermore, our survey was able to add several new records for the area considered, in comparison of the 70's study, for a total of 89 species known from NCSU campus. After comparison with other studies, our results represent one of the most species-rich urban environments monitored and thus open encouraging perspective on how urban ecosystems could contribute to the preservation of the biodiversity of small-bodies organisms such as ants.

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“…However, this is not an exclusively tropical phenomenon. It has also been documented in the temperate regions, where in the vicinity of a small swimming pool in suburban Barcelona, many of the ants considered to be extremely rare in Spain were recently found (Espadaler & López-Soria, 1991). …”

Section: Commentsmentioning

confidence: 91%

A revision of the Neotropical Solenopsidini ant genus Oxyepoecus Santschi, 1926 (Hymenoptera: Formicidae: Myrmicinae). 1. The Vezenyii species-group

Albuquerque¹,

Brandão²

2004

Pap. Avulsos Zool. (São Paulo)

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Rareness of certain Mediterranean ant species: fact or artifact?

Cited by 28 publications

References 13 publications

Social parasitism in ants: effects of the inquiline parasite Plagiolepis xene St. on queen distribution and worker production of its host Plagiolepis pygmaea Latr.

Social parasitism in ants: effects of the inquiline parasite Plagiolepis xene St. on queen distribution and worker production of its host Plagiolepis pygmaea Latr.

High diversity in an urban habitat: are some animal assemblages resilient to long-term anthropogenic change?

A revision of the Neotropical Solenopsidini ant genus Oxyepoecus Santschi, 1926 (Hymenoptera: Formicidae: Myrmicinae). 1. The Vezenyii species-group

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