Abstract
Ants use various communication channels to regulate their social organisation. The main channel that drives almost all the ants’ activities and behaviours is the chemical one, but it is long acknowledged that the acoustic channel also plays an important role. However, very little is known regarding exploitation of the acoustical channel by myrmecophile parasites to infiltrate the ant society. Among social parasites, the ant nest beetles (Paussus) are obligate myrmecophiles able to move throughout the colony at will and prey on the ants, surprisingly never eliciting aggression from the colonies. It has been recently postulated that stridulatory organs in Paussus might be evolved as an acoustic mechanism to interact with ants. Here, we survey the role of acoustic signals employed in the Paussus beetle-Pheidole ant system. Ants parasitised by Paussus beetles produce caste-specific stridulations. We found that Paussus can “speak” three different “languages”, each similar to sounds produced by different ant castes (workers, soldiers, queen). Playback experiments were used to test how host ants respond to the sounds emitted by Paussus. Our data suggest that, by mimicking the stridulations of the queen, Paussus is able to dupe the workers of its host and to be treated as royalty. This is the first report of acoustic mimicry in a beetle parasite of ants.
Highlights
We show that Paussus favieri is able to mimic ants’ stridulations but can “speak” three different “languages”, each corresponding to sounds produced by different ant castes, including the queen, to direct host ant behaviours
We found that members of all three castes of Pheidole pallidula produce with their abdominal stridulatory organs (Fig 1, 1A1–1A5) distinctive sounds (Fig 2 and S1–S3 Files)
The different stridulations emitted by Paussus elicit different responses in the ants. This finding is notable because it is the first documented case of ant-beetle interaction via the acoustic channel, but because the acoustical behaviour of Paussus is much more refined than that previously found in Maculinea
Summary
“. . .and ere three shrill notes the pipe uttered, you heard as if an army muttered. from street to street he piped advancing, and step for step they followed dancing. . .”. That Paussus are able to prey upon brood and adults alike and interact with the queen without eliciting any aggressive behavior from the ants (including those being preyed upon!) [4,5] demonstrates the shear sophistication of their masquerade parasitism and suggests that Paussus have utilized another channel beyond chemical mimicry to achieve their hierarchical standing among their hosts. Paussus utilizes modular acoustical mimicry to achieve the highest hierarchical status of the colony In presenting this new finding regarding adult beetles we document that Paussus has evolved the most sophisticated acoustical behaviour for social parasitism known to date
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