Abstract
Culture-based methods were employed to recover 3929 isolates of fungi from soils collected in May and July 2014 from mound nests of Formica ulkei and adjacent non-nest sites. The abundance, diversity, and richness of species from nest mounds exceeded those of non-mound soils, particularly in July. Communities of fungi from mounds were more similar to those from mounds than non-mounds; this was also the case for non-mound soils with the exception of one non-mound site in July. Species of Aspergillus, Paecilomyces, and Penicillium were dominant in nest soils and represented up to 81.8% of the taxa recovered. Members of the genus Aspergillus accounted for the majority of Trichocomaceae from nests and were represented almost exclusively by Aspergillus navahoensis and Aspergillus pseudodeflectus. Dominant fungi from non-mound sites included Cladosporium cladosporioides, Geomyces pannorum, and species of Acremonium, Fusarium, Penicillium, and Phoma. Although mound nests were warmer than adjacent soils, the dominance of xerotolerant Aspergillus in soils from mounds and the isolation of the majority of Trichocomaceae at 25 and 35 °C suggests that both temperature and water availability may be determinants of fungal community structure in nests of F. ulkei.
Highlights
The mound-building ant Formica ulkei Emery (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) ranges from Alberta to Nova Scotia (Canada) and southward to Illinois, Indiana and Iowa (USA) (Holmquist 1928; Sherba 1958; Glasier et al 2013)
Data loggers were buried 5 cm deep in soil on the top, south side and north side of three mound nests of Formica ulkei located on the un-forested edge of a cattle pasture that had not been grazed in approximately 10 years, south of White Mud Falls, Manitoba
Aspergillus pseudodeflectus was recovered from only a single non-mound site in May but in very low abundance (0.3%) representing a single isolate whereas A. navahoensis was never isolated from non-mound soils
Summary
The mound-building ant Formica ulkei Emery (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) ranges from Alberta to Nova Scotia (Canada) and southward to Illinois, Indiana and Iowa (USA) (Holmquist 1928; Sherba 1958; Glasier et al 2013). Nests are built in exposed sites and are oriented to maximize their exposure to solar radiation (Sherba 1958); they gain heat from solar radiation in the early spring and maintain temperatures that are higher and more stable than those of surrounding soils because of the insulating properties of thatch (Sherba 1962; Frouz and Jilková 2008) This layer of organic material prevents the overheating of mounds during the warmest parts of the year in other ant species that construct thatched nests (Bollazzi and Rocces 2010; Kadochová and Frouz 2014) and it may serve the same function in F. ulkei.
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