Mechanisms of carbohydrate‐fuelled ecological dominance in a tropical rainforest canopy‐foraging ant

Abstract

1. Canopy‐foraging ants have carbohydrate‐rich diets and the stoichiometric excess of carbon may result in energetic allocation decisions that facilitate ecological dominance.2. If dietary carbohydrates facilitate ecological dominance in canopy ants, then the mechanism for this relationship is unknown.3. Four hypotheses were posit that may explain how a carbohydrate‐rich diet might facilitate ecological dominance in canopy ants: Aggressive Defense, Metabolic Fuel, Foraging Success, and Prey Acquisition.4. To assess these hypotheses, experiments were conducted on the canopy‐foraging bullet ant, Paraponera clavata (Fabricius), an omnivorous species that demonstrates high variability in the relative contribution of carbohydrates to the diets of colonies.5. No support was found for the Aggressive Defense, Metabolic Fuel and Prey Acquisition hypotheses.6. The Foraging Success hypothesis was supported, as the proportion of nectar in the diet predicted the overall foraging success.7. It was argued that there is no explicit advantage in the exploitation of nectar over other food resources, other than the fact that it is the most accessible food resource in the rainforest canopy.