Hitchhiking and the removal of microbial contaminants by the leaf‐cutting ant Atta colombica

Abstract

1. The ecologically dominant leaf‐cutting ants exhibit one of the most complex forms of morphological caste‐based division of labour in order to efficiently conduct tasks, ranging from harvesting fresh leaf material to caring for the vulnerable fungal crop they farm as food. While much of their division of labour is well known, the role of the smallest workers on foraging trails is puzzling. Frequently these minim workers hitchhike on leaf fragments and it has been suggested that they may act to reduce the microbial contamination of leaf material before they enter the nest. Here we investigated this potentially important role of minims with field colonies of Atta colombica.2. We experimentally increased the microbial load of leaf fragments and found that this resulted in minims hitchhiking on leaf fragments for longer. Furthermore, we show that leaves naturally have a significant microbial load and that the presence of hitchhikers reduces the microbial load of both experimentally manipulated and natural leaf fragments.3. Intriguingly, the microbial load of leaves high in the canopy where ants were foraging was much lower than closer to the ground where the ants avoided cutting leaves. This suggests that the often perplexing foraging patterns of leaf‐cutting ants may in part be explained by the ants avoiding leaves that are more heavily contaminated with microbes.4. The removal of microbial contaminants is therefore an important role of hitchhiking minim workers in natural colonies of Atta leaf‐cutting ants, although other tasks such as trail maintenance and defence also explain their occurrence on trails.