A Day in the Life of the Giant Ant Dinoponera lucida Emery, 1901 (Hymenoptera, Formicidae): Records of Activities and Intraspecific Interactions

Cássio Zocca,Cecília Weichert,Ana Carolina Srbek-Araujo,Rodrigo B Ferreira,Flávio Curbani,Tathiana Guerra Sobrinho

doi:10.13102/sociobiology.v68i2.6166

Cássio Zocca, Cecília Weichert + Show 4 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.13102/sociobiology.v68i2.6166

Copy DOI

Abstract

Ants present a wide variety of nesting sites, feeding habits, and trophic interactions, but the biology of most species remains unknown. Dinoponera lucida is a poneromorph ant forest-specialist and solitary forager, endemic to the Brazil’s Atlantic Forest. Herein we describe foraging activities, guard and maintenance of the nests, orientation mode, and intraspecific interactions performed by D. lucida. We found three nests distant from each other at least 8.5 m, and the mean reached distance by a worker was 3.8 m. The workers showed colony fidelity and random forage in their territory. We observed two non-agonistic interactions between workers from the same nest, and two agonistic interactions between foraging workers from different nests. The low frequency of agonistic interactions suggests that workers from different nests are unlikely to forage in the same area. Our results expand the knowledge on ants’ natural history through data on foraging activities, guard and maintenance of the nests, orientation mode and intraspecific interactions.

Highlights

Ants are among the most abundant groups of terrestrial invertebrates
We add further information on intraspecific nonagonistic and interspecific agonistic interactions, guarding, and maintenance of the nests, foraging activities and orientation mode performed by D. lucida
We carried out observations from September 29th to October 2nd, 2017, in the Reserva Natural Vale (22.711 ha), municipality of Linhares, northern of Espírito Santo

Summary

Introduction

Ants are among the most abundant groups of terrestrial invertebrates. Ants have a wide variety of nesting sites, feeding habits, and trophic interactions (Kaspari, 2000), and are the subject of basic and applied research. We add further information on intraspecific nonagonistic and interspecific agonistic interactions, guarding, and maintenance of the nests, foraging activities and orientation mode performed by D. lucida. We observed D. lucida workers in foraging activity for 48 hours (cumulative sampling), continuously from 6 AM to 6 PM for four days, from three distinct nests in a 30 m x 30 m plot in a lowland coastal forest (19o 09’ 14.5” S, 40o 04’ 14.0” W). Dinoponera gigantea (Perty, 1833) had similar returning behavior (Fourcassié & Oliveira, 2002).

Results

Conclusion