Preferences and differences in the trail pheromone of the leaf-cutting ant Atta sexdens sexdens (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

Title:

Preferences and differences in the trail pheromone of the leaf-cutting ant Atta sexdens sexdens (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

Creator:

Morgan, David E., Keegans, Sarah J., Tits, Jozef, Wenseleers, Tom, and Billen, Johan

Identifier:

https://cdk.lib.cas.cz/client/handle/uuid:6a2ed1db-6408-4787-8b27-5a0cbd02589f
uuid:6a2ed1db-6408-4787-8b27-5a0cbd02589f

Subject:

Formicidae, trail pheromone, caste differences, pheromone concentration, trail width, colony specificity, venom gland, Dufour gland, and Atta sexdens sexdens

Type:

article, model:article, and TEXT

Description:

The amount of the trail pheromone substance, 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine, of the leaf-cutting ant Atta sexdens sexdens (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) increases with increasing size of the ant from 0 to 35 ng per individual. The compounds 2,5-dimethylpyrazine and trimethylpyrazine are also consistently present. Trails of venom gland extracts are followed with unequal fidelity by different castes. Minor workers follow best, mediums least well. Workers walk sinuously on narrow trails and less sinuously on wider trails up to 9 mm. Trails wider than 9 mm are not followed. The optimum concentration of pheromone on synthetic trails lies between 15 and 150 pg cm-1. Given a choice of concentrations at a trail branch, workers always choose the more concentrated. Workers showed slight preference for a trail made with venom gland secretion from their own, over that from an alien colony, but there is no preference for a trail that contains Dufour gland secretion additionally.

Language:

English

Rights:

http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/
policy:public

Source:

European Journal of Entomology | 2006 Volume:103 | Number:3

Harvested from:

CDK

Metadata only:

false