Pollution diminishes intra-specific aggressiveness between wood ant colonies

Abstract

A variety of common environmental pollutants are known to affect the animal behaviour, but the occurrence and extent of pollution-induced behavioural changes in wild populations are practically unknown. Here we show that heavy metal pollution reduces the normal intra-specific aggressive behaviour in wild populations of the wood ant, Formica aquilonia, a dominant territorial ant species in boreal forests. Ants exposed to long-term pollution around a copper smelter showed higher heavy metal concentrations and were less aggressive towards the member of foreign unpolluted colony than the ants from an uncontaminated area. A pollution-related decline in the level of aggressiveness in this keystone general predator species may potentially affect the structure of invertebrate community of boreal and temperate forests. Further studies are needed to find out whether the change in aggressiveness is directly caused by metal toxicity or indirectly via secondary pollution effects, such as changed resource levels.