The complex nest architecture of the Ponerinae ant Odontomachus chelifer

Abstract

In social insects, nests are very important structures built to provide a protected microhabitat for immature development and food storage and are the places where most interactions between all members of a colony occur. Considering that nest architecture is an important behavioural trait that can clarify essential points of the social level of the species, here we describe the architectural model of the Ponerinae ant Odontomachus chelifer. Five subterranean nests were excavated; one of them filled with liquid cement for extraction of casts of chambers, shafts and tunnels. All nests were found in a woodland area, with Dystrophic Red Latosol soil, associated with roots of large trees and, differently from the pattern currently described for this subfamily, presented a complex structure with multiple entrances and more than one vertical shaft connected by tunnels to relatively horizontal chambers. The number of chambers varied from 24 to 77, with mean volume ranging from 200.09 cm 3 to 363.79 cm 3 , and maximum depth of 134 cm. Worker population varied between 304 and 864 individuals with on average 8.28 cm 2 of area per worker. All nests had at least one Hall, which is a relatively larger chamber serving as a distribution centre of the nest, and to our knowledge, there is no record of Ponerinae species building similar structure. All nests had chambers "paved" with pieces of decaying plant material and on the floor of some of them, we found a fungus whose identification and function are being investigated. Thus, our findings provide evidence to suggest that nests of O. chelifer can be considered complex, due to the great number and organization of chambers, shafts and connections, compared to those currently described for Ponerinae species.

A 3D model to illustrate the nest architecture of Acromyrmex balzani (Hymenoptera; Formicidae)

“…In addition, the volume of the chambers was closely related to the number of chambers, indicating that nest growth was mainly due to the digging of more standard-sized chambers. Hence, the volume seemed to depend on the total number of ants in the colony, as similarly described for the nests of Odontomachus brunneus (Patton) (Cerquera and Tschinkel, 2010), Formica pallidefulva (Latreille) (Mikheyev and Tschinkel, 2004), and Odontomachus chelifer (Latreille) (Guimarães et al, 2018).…”

“…Pearson correlation tests were performed to determine whether there were any significant relationships between the number of workers and the number of chambers, between the number of workers and the nest volume, and between the number of chambers and the nest volume. These correlations could indicate the way in which the nest increased in size, whether by increasing the volume of preexisting chambers, or by adding more standard-sized chambers, as well as the influence of the colony population density on this increase (Tschinkel, 1999;Mikheyev and Tschinkel, 2004;Guimarães et al, 2018). These analyses were performed using R software (R Core Development Team, 2019).…”

“…On the other hand, the use of 3D models based on morphometric nest data, in addition to allowing the study of colony demographics, can illustrate the structures of the nests in their natural forms. However, there have been few studies describing the architecture of ant colonies using 3D models (Pinter-Wollman, 2015;Khuong et al, 2016;Guimarães et al, 2018).…”

Nest Architecture and Animals Associated with Neoponera verenae (Forel) (Formicidae, Ponerinae)

“…Ponerinae is a subfamily with a variety of nest architectures and nesting sites, being able to live from the subsoil (Silva-Melo & Giannotti, 2010;Guimarães et al, 2018) to the canopy of forests (Longino & Nadkarni, 1990;Camargo & Oliveira, 2012). Neoponera is a genus from this subfamily that often have nests located in hollow or decaying logs, healthy trees, epiphytes or underground (Araujo et al, 2019).…”

Nest Architecture Development of Grass-Cutting Ants, Atta capiguara (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

“…Nest architecture is an important behavioral feature and can clarify points of the ant's social organization level since there are few studies on nest building patterns, especially subterranean nests (Guimarães et al, 2018). The present study describes the nest architecture development of A. capiguara grass-cutting ants from data on 31 cement-molded nests.…”