The Native Ant Lasius niger Can Limit the Access to Resources of the Invasive Argentine Ant

Abstract

Within ant communities, the biotic resistance of native species against invasive ones is expected to be rare, because invasive species are often highly dominant competitors. The invasive Argentine ant (Linepithema humile (Mayr)) often demonstrated numerical dominance against its opponents, increased aggressiveness, and ability to quickly recruit to food. The present study aimed to assess the behavioral mechanisms involved in the interspecific competition between L. humile, facing either an invasive species (Lasius neglectus Van Loon, Boomsma and Andrásfalvy) or a native dominant species (Lasius niger (Linnaeus)). The resource exploitation by the Argentine ant was investigated during one-hour competitive interactions using 10 dead Drosophila flies as prey. When facing La. niger, L. humile exploratory behavior was strongly inhibited, it brought very few prey resources, and killed few opponents. Conversely, La. neglectus had a low impact on L. humile. Contrarily to expectations, the invasive La. neglectus lacked the ability to hinder L. humile resource exploitation, whereas the native La. niger did. These results suggest that La. niger could impact invasive populations of L. humile by interference competition, perhaps better so than some invasive species. While L. humile has become invasive in Southern Europe, the invasion process could be slowed down in the northern latitudes by such native dominant species.

A systematic examination of learning in the invasive antLinepithema humilereveals very rapid development of short and long-term memory

“…L. humile's strong individual memory may allow them to reliably recruit even to distant resources, while their strong reliance on social information (von Thienen et al 2014(von Thienen et al , 2016, and ability to recruit from active trails (Flanagan et al 2013), may allow them to rapidly dominate these resources once found. Indeed, the rapid discovery of new resources coupled with massive, rapid recruitment might be an important contribution to making Argentine ants competitive against native ants (Holway 1999), but see (Cordonnier et al 2020). Route learning and navigation in ants is less effective on complex routes with alternating turns, but when trail pheromones are present, error rates decrease (Czaczkes et al 2013).…”

Local coexistence of native and invasive ant species is associated with micro-spatial shifts in foraging activity

“…niger is a challenging competitor that can limit the foraging success of highly invasive species such as Argentine ants (Linepithema humile ; Cordonnier, Blight, Angulo, & Courchamp, 2020). However, it is possible that, over time, T. magnum can displace L. niger from baits (Thomas and Holway 2005;Carval et al 2016).…”

Effects of starvation on the fighting ability of invasive and autochthonous ants

“…It has been demonstrated that the presence of L. neglectus is a weak deterrent to hinder L. humile resource exploitation, contrarily to other Lasius species (Cordonnier et al . 2020), thus the competition outcomes in the field may be also influenced by other factors, such as chemical repellents (Sorrells et al . 2011).…”

“…For example, we do not know how fighting ability interacts with other behaviors, such as the ability to locate food items (Mailleux et al 2011a,b), or how lack of resources affects colony productivity and growth (Dussutour & Simpson 2008). It has been demonstrated that the presence of L. neglectus is a weak deterrent to hinder L. humile resource exploitation, contrarily to other Lasius species (Cordonnier et al 2020), thus the competition outcomes in the field may be also influenced by other factors, such as chemical repellents (Sorrells et al 2011). Moreover, since the confrontations in this study were between groups of equal size, we do not know how the final outcome varies when groups of different sizes are involved (Batchelor et al 2012;Trigos-Peral et al 2021).…”