Ants remember their enemy's scent

By Victoria GillScience reporter, BBC Nature

Ant colonies - one of nature's most ancient and efficient societies - are able to form a "collective memory" of their enemies, say scientists.

When one ant fights with an intruder from another colony it retains that enemy's odour: passing it on to the rest of the colony.

This enables any of its nest-mates to identify an ant from the offending colony.

The findings are reported in the journal Naturwissenschaften.

For many ant species, chemicals are key to functioning as a society. Insects identify their nest-mates by the specific "chemical signature" that coats the body of every member of that nest.

The insects are also able to sniff out any intruder that might be attempting to invade.

This study, carried out by a team from the University of Melbourne in Australia, set out to discover if ants were able to retain memories of the odours they encounter.

The researchers studied the tropical weaver ant (Oecophylla smaragdina), which builds is home in trees; one nest can contain up to 500,000 workers.

Read on:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/17099761

Scientists Make Supersoldier Ants

When eight bizarrely big-headed soldier ants turned up in a wild colony collected from Long Island, N.Y., scientists knew they had found something interesting. 

This discovery of these oversized versions of soldier ants, whose job is to defend the nest, led researchers to create their own supersoldier ants in the lab with the help of a hormone, and, by doing so, offer an explanation for how ants, and possibly other social insects, take on specific forms with dedicated jobs within their colonies.
It turns out these abnormal soldier ants were throwbacks to an ancestral state, one that no longer shows up within their species except, apparently, by accident. This phenomenon occasionally pops up elsewhere, in the form of whales bearing limbs their ancestors lost, chickens with teeth or humans with tails. [10 Vestigial Limbs & Organs] 

"It's been known for a long time that these kinds of slips occur, and they are viewed as the Barnum and Bailey of evolution," said the study's senior researcher Ehad Abouheif, Canada research chair in evolutionary developmental biology at McGill University. "What we are showing for the first time is there is this ancestral potential sitting there, and when poked by the environment it can really unleash this potential that can power evolution." 

Read more at: http://www.livescience.com/17766-supersoldier-ants-castes-evolution.html

Invasive Ant Dying Out

One of the world's worst invasive species, the Argentine ant, is mysteriously disappearing from New Zealand.

The Argentine ant poses a huge risk to horticulture and is a threat to native species.

They attack birds, have been known to eat lizards in New Zealand and the World Conservation Union classed them as one of the world's 100 worst invasive species.

The small, brown insects were first found in New Zealand in 1990 and have spread throughout the North Island, usually attracted to warm climates like Northland and Hawke's Bay. Their colonies reach as far south as Christchurch.

But, the population has just started dying off, though the reason for their deaths is unclear, Victoria University associate professor Phil Lester said.

Lester and masters student Meghan Cooling concluded the species naturally collapses after about 10 to 20 years.

The pair assessed about 150 sites throughout the country that have been populated by the ants.

The colonies disappeared from at least 40 per cent of the sites and populations had significantly shrunk at the other sites, Lester said.

They discovered some dead ants, but believed the others had decomposed or been eaten.

"At some sites they've disappeared all together and other native ants have reinvaded these areas," Lester said.

It was unclear why the invasive ant was disappearing, but Lester suspected it was due to a virus of some sort.

"Because they're collapsing on their own the country could save millions," he said.

When the species was first discovered in New Zealand the Government estimated the ants would cost about $68 million a year in pest control, Lester said.

They have destroyed farms overseas and killed off other species, but they haven't been so disastrous in New Zealand.

But they could potentially threaten the viticulture and horticultural industries if populations got out of hand.

If they were to reach Department of Conservation protected islands the results could be disastrous.

The ants are about 2-3 millimetres long and produce multiple queens and can form huge super-colonies that extend for thousands of kilometres, according to the Biosecurity New Zealand website.

They can bite and cause a reaction in some people.


http://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/6069396/Invasive-ant-dying-out

Leaf Litter Ants Advance Case for Rainforest Conservation in Borneo

ScienceDaily (Oct. 20, 2011) — Studies of ant populations in Borneo reveal an unexpected resilience to areas of rainforest degraded by repeated intensive logging. A finding which conservationists hope will lead governments to conserve these areas rather than allow them to be cleared and used for cash crop plantations.

Leaf litter ants are often used to measure the overall ecological health of an area because of the large number of species present and because the health of the leaf litter is a good indication of the overall health of the forest.

It is commonly assumed that repeated logging of rainforests has catastrophic effects on biodiversity. However, studies by Leeds ecologists in northern Borneo, where timber harvests are among the highest globally, have shown that in fact over 80% of ant species found in pristine, unlogged forest were also found in forest that had been logged twice.

The findings have implications for forest conservation as areas of forest where intensive logging has been carried out are typically thought to have little conservation value and are often allowed to be cleared entirely to make way for cash crops such as oil palm.

Keith Hamer, a Reader in Animal Ecology at the Institute of Integrative & Comparative Biology, led the study. He explains: "Rainforests in Borneo are managed through a system called 'selective logging'. In this system, not all the trees are harvested, only the largest, commercially valuable trees. This is supposed to be a sustainable system, but in practice the intensity of harvesting is often too high and areas are then liable to be logged a second time before they have had a chance properly to regenerate.

"These repeatedly logged areas can look awful, with big gaps in the tree canopy which are then invaded by grasses, leading to arguments that such areas are too badly degraded for conservation."
Dr Hamer added: "The logging clearly does have an effect on ant populations but it's not nearly as disastrous as might be expected. These areas are able to support much more diverse communities than oil palm plantations but large areas are still being converted. Preventing this needs to be a priority for policy-makers and conservationists in the region."

The study is part of the Royal Society's Southeast Asia Rainforest Research Programme and is published in a special edition of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. It was supported by a grant from the Leverhulme Trust.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111020105758.htm

Honey ant queens share a throne

As the sole reproducer in a colony, ant queens are traditionally considered lone figures.

However, in certain species unrelated queens will sometimes co-operate to kick-start a new colony.

The team filming for BBC Two series Natural World believe this is the first footage to show honeypot ant queens co-operating in the wild.

Filmmakers spent 150 days in the deserts of Arizona, US to capture the behaviour of the ants Myrmecocystus mimicus.

Filming the foundation of a new colony was a considerable challenge because the insects rarely ventured above ground.

The team's chance came following a mating swarm that happens only once a year.

"You can't make it happen, you just have to be there," cameraman John Brown explained.

"I knew the ants would only perform their nuptial flight after a summer storm... but the storms are infrequent, short, unpredictable, and in my first year of filming it didn't happen at all in the canyon," he said.

The honeypot ants timed their mating so that the ground was soft enough for queens to dig a nest.

After weeks of checking the weather radar through the night, John finally had the perfect opportunity to film the ants but had to do so before the sun baked them to death.

An early start paid off for the team who were able to capture in detail the greeting between two queens and their subsequent co-operation.

"I knew queens sometimes co-operated, but was amazed at the degree to which it happened... the level of communication between them was impressive and fascinating," Mr Brown told BBC Nature.

Ant expert Professor Bert Holldobler of Arizona State University said: "These queens were not related... They originated from different colonies, but nevertheless they co-operated during colony foundation.

"The main reason for that seems to be that young colonies compete with one another and raid each other, stealing the brood from other colonies. The larger the colony, the better it is at raiding neighbouring colonies."

Prof Holldobler first documented the "slave-making" behaviour of M. mimicus in 1976 and, since then, he has studied the ants' complex social behaviour.
In addition to filming the foundation of the colony, the film crew was able to film inside the nest to see what happened next.

Their cameras revealed that once the queens had raised an army of workers, a subtle but lethal "revolution" took place.

"The first queen reduction happens after about a month after the nest is founded - when the first generation of workers has hatched," explained Mr Brown.

"The process is a slow and low-key wearing down of the 'victim' queen; the workers withhold food and constantly hassle her."

Ant specialist and wrangler Ray Mendez facilitated the filming, having worked extensively with ants in the area.

Mr Mendez pointed out that, rather than valuing a single sovereign, the worker ants were simply picking off the weakest queens to manage their resources better.

After digging the nest and raising the first brood, Mr Mendez says, the weakest queens are abandoned by their colony.

"At that point, [the queen has] expended all of her energy stores," he explained.

But rather than select a single "monarch", honeypot ant colonies with sufficient space will occasionally support multiple queens.

"They don't necessarily sit next to each other like a bunch of chums," Mr Mendez said.

But with underground nests extending to depths of up to 3m, Mr Mendez has found as many as half a dozen queens in one colony.

Prof Holldobler's genetic research has also confirmed that, although it is not common, multiple queens can exist in a single colony.

"Whether they all contribute to the offspring to the same degree, or whether one queen's eggs and larvae are primarily raised to virgin queens and males and the other queens' eggs to workers, is not yet known," he said.

By Ella Davies Reporter, BBC Nature
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/14417917

The first non-human meat farmers

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20630-zoologger-the-first-nonhuman-meat-farmers.html

If biologists' best guess proves correct, these ants raise their insect herds for meat, not milk – the first example of meat farmers other than humans. And that's not all. The insects they cultivate may be the best example of true domestication outside of our crop plants.
You have to know what you're looking for to even see Melissotarsus. The ants – barely 3 millimetres long – live most of their lives within the intricate gallery systems they excavate in and under the bark of trees. They're such committed burrowers that their second pair of legs points up, not down, so they can get a foothold in the tunnel roof as well as the floor. They share their galleries with several species of armoured scale insects, so-called because most species secrete a tough, waxy scale that covers and protects them.



Read on...

Girl has more than 30 ants in her ears

Updated: 2011-05-30 08:51

A 16-year-old girl in Taiwan had more than 30 ants in her ears because of her fancy for snacks.

Recently her ears started itching and when her family members said they had seen ants climbing out of her ears she rushed to see a doctor.

The doctor found that there were about six ants in the girl's left ear, and more than 20 in her right ear.

Fortunately the ants had not caused any harm to the girl's eardrum.

The girl said she always likes eating snacks and clearing her ears when lying in bed.

(www.chinanews.com)

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011-05/30/content_12601113.htm

Alberta researcher makes surprising discovery about ant species

U of A researcher found 89 species

By Hanneke Brooymans, Edmonton Journal January 21, 2011

EDMONTON — Alberta is crawling with more than twice as many ant species as originally thought.

This surprising discovery was made by University of Alberta master’s student James Glasier while he was studying ants and their habitats in the sandhills near Edmonton.

He needed to sort out which ants were there, but quickly discovered there was no handy key on the ants of Alberta to help him identify all the different species. So he thought he’d make one himself.

Glasier, 25, drew on a preliminary survey done in the 1960s by Janet Sharplin, but nothing substantial had been done since then. So he collected ants wherever he went. He turned over rocks, dug through soil, pulled off tree bark, knocked down dead trees and set up traps. He found one species in the 27th-floor apartment of a friend. (That ant happens to be the only known invasive species in the province, called a pharaoh ant.) Other ants were sent to him by researchers doing work in various parts of the province.

Altogether, he has more than doubled the number of ant species in Alberta from 40 to 89.

One of the more interesting species was found inside the hill of another species. These guest ants, as they’re called, take up the chemical scent that the host colony members use to identify each other. That way they manage to fool the resident ants into accepting them and even feeding them, Glasier said.

It’s not clear if these free loaders are benefiting the hosts in any way. Sometimes they’re seen cleaning the larger ants, but Glasier thinks that might be how they pick up the chemicals they need to mask their identities.

Seems pretty smart for a creature only twice the size of the head of a pin. Glasier has a few of these pinned inside his insect cabinet where he has meticulously labelled and stored many of the species he has collected. Others are stored in small vials of ethanol.

In the first summer he amassed more than 20,000 ants. Parked in front of a microscope, he’s developed a knack for identifying ants, a tricky business involving noting the grooves and shape of the body, as well as the number of hairs on the body.

“I’ve looked at them for so long, sometimes they’re really easy,” Glasier said about the identification process. “But if it’s something new, it can take a long time to identify.”

Glasier thinks the province could still yield more species. “I would say there are definitely more out there, especially in southern Alberta, where I haven’t done a lot of work.”

Glasier said it’s important to know what species we have and what they’re doing because ants are an integral part of our ecosystems, not only as a source of food for everything from grizzly bears to woodpeckers, but also because they reduce some pest insect populations and protect some plants from being browsed.

One of Glasier’s academic supervisors is John Acorn, an entomologist and author of numerous books on bugs. Their relationship goes back more than a decade. When Glasier was in Grade 7, he asked Acorn to be a mentor. One of his first projects with Acorn involved ants.

Now he’s adding new species to the Alberta list.

“To me, the big message is there’s so much we take for granted,” Acorn said about Glasier’s new species. “There have been very competent entomologists working in Alberta for 100 years. And ants are not exactly obscure.

“In a way, it’s kind of embarrassing. We really should know this.”

On the other hand, it’s also exciting, he said. As we learn more about the ecology of ants and how important they are in the overall scheme of things, it will be useful to know which species play roles in the different ecosystems, he said.

hbrooymans@edmontonjournal.com

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/technology/Alberta+researcher+makes+surprising+discovery+about+species/4147744/story.html

Alberta researcher makes surprising discovery about ant species

U of A researcher found 89 species

By Hanneke Brooymans, Edmonton Journal January 21, 2011

EDMONTON — Alberta is crawling with more than twice as many ant species as originally thought.

This surprising discovery was made by University of Alberta master’s student James Glasier while he was studying ants and their habitats in the sandhills near Edmonton.

He needed to sort out which ants were there, but quickly discovered there was no handy key on the ants of Alberta to help him identify all the different species. So he thought he’d make one himself.

Glasier, 25, drew on a preliminary survey done in the 1960s by Janet Sharplin, but nothing substantial had been done since then. So he collected ants wherever he went. He turned over rocks, dug through soil, pulled off tree bark, knocked down dead trees and set up traps. He found one species in the 27th-floor apartment of a friend. (That ant happens to be the only known invasive species in the province, called a pharaoh ant.) Other ants were sent to him by researchers doing work in various parts of the province.

Altogether, he has more than doubled the number of ant species in Alberta from 40 to 89.

One of the more interesting species was found inside the hill of another species. These guest ants, as they’re called, take up the chemical scent that the host colony members use to identify each other. That way they manage to fool the resident ants into accepting them and even feeding them, Glasier said.

It’s not clear if these free loaders are benefiting the hosts in any way. Sometimes they’re seen cleaning the larger ants, but Glasier thinks that might be how they pick up the chemicals they need to mask their identities.

Seems pretty smart for a creature only twice the size of the head of a pin. Glasier has a few of these pinned inside his insect cabinet where he has meticulously labelled and stored many of the species he has collected. Others are stored in small vials of ethanol.

In the first summer he amassed more than 20,000 ants. Parked in front of a microscope, he’s developed a knack for identifying ants, a tricky business involving noting the grooves and shape of the body, as well as the number of hairs on the body.

“I’ve looked at them for so long, sometimes they’re really easy,” Glasier said about the identification process. “But if it’s something new, it can take a long time to identify.”

Glasier thinks the province could still yield more species. “I would say there are definitely more out there, especially in southern Alberta, where I haven’t done a lot of work.”

Glasier said it’s important to know what species we have and what they’re doing because ants are an integral part of our ecosystems, not only as a source of food for everything from grizzly bears to woodpeckers, but also because they reduce some pest insect populations and protect some plants from being browsed.

One of Glasier’s academic supervisors is John Acorn, an entomologist and author of numerous books on bugs. Their relationship goes back more than a decade. When Glasier was in Grade 7, he asked Acorn to be a mentor. One of his first projects with Acorn involved ants.

Now he’s adding new species to the Alberta list.

“To me, the big message is there’s so much we take for granted,” Acorn said about Glasier’s new species. “There have been very competent entomologists working in Alberta for 100 years. And ants are not exactly obscure.

“In a way, it’s kind of embarrassing. We really should know this.”

On the other hand, it’s also exciting, he said. As we learn more about the ecology of ants and how important they are in the overall scheme of things, it will be useful to know which species play roles in the different ecosystems, he said.

hbrooymans@edmontonjournal.com

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/technology/Alberta+researcher+makes+surprising+discovery+about+species/4147744/story.html

Slave-making ants target the strong not the weak

Slavemaker ants prefer to target the strong over the weak when seeking new servants, researchers have found.


Ants were observed actively choosing to attack larger, better defended colonies over smaller, weaker ones.

Scientists suggest that the intelligent ants identify strong defences as a sign of a strong population.

By conducting fewer raids on strongly defended targets, the slave-making ants actually limit the risks and come away with the most pupae to enslave.

Slavemaker ants such as Protomognathus americanus are known to demonstrate unusual colony behaviour.


The queen produces offspring but crucially, they do not perform the everyday worker tasks of foraging or caring for broods.

Instead, nominated scout workers identify nearby "host" ant colonies suitable for attack.

During the attack the slavemaker ants steal host pupae and take them back to their own colony.

The pupae are imprinted on the odour of the slavemaker colony and grow up to perform all of the ordinary worker tasks.

This exploitation of another species' workforce is called social parasitism.

In their study published in Animal Behaviour, researchers from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany theorised that slavemaker ants chose "easy targets" over more strongly defended colonies as they offered the lowest risk.

The ants in Sebastian Pohl's study acted in the opposite manner: raiding parties were more likely to attack stronger colonies.

"At first, we were quite surprised, as we expected that attacking slavemaker colonies prefer host colonies that provide a better benefit to risk ratio," Mr Pohl explained.

"We hence had to look at the slavemakers' decision in more detail and had to consider more aspects of the complete raiding behaviour."


Mr Pohl and his colleagues identified that the "slave raids" presented considerable risk to P. americanus.

In small slavemaker colonies consisting of one queen, two to five workers and 30 to 60 slaves, scout ants were very valuable.

It was essential that scouts made the right decision about suitable raid targets or "host colonies" without being discovered and attacked.

"Losing a single worker might very likely be synonymous with losing half of the colony members," Mr Pohl told the BBC.

Therefore, a smaller number of scouting events and subsequent raids presented the lowest risk to the slavemaker colony.

However, the colony still needed new slaves to be able to survive to the next season.

From their behaviour, researchers suggested that the scout ants associated strong colonies with high numbers of pupae and a high benefit.

The tactic of fewer raids on stronger targets consequently offered the best risk to benefit ratio.

P. americanus are 2-3mm in size and live in the deciduous forests of the northeastern USA and adjacent Canadian regions.

Due to their small size a whole colony can inhabit one hollow acorn.

By Ella Davies

Earth News reporter

Slave-making ants target the strong not the weak

Slavemaker ants prefer to target the strong over the weak when seeking new servants, researchers have found.


Ants were observed actively choosing to attack larger, better defended colonies over smaller, weaker ones.

Scientists suggest that the intelligent ants identify strong defences as a sign of a strong population.

By conducting fewer raids on strongly defended targets, the slave-making ants actually limit the risks and come away with the most pupae to enslave.

Slavemaker ants such as Protomognathus americanus are known to demonstrate unusual colony behaviour.


The queen produces offspring but crucially, they do not perform the everyday worker tasks of foraging or caring for broods.

Instead, nominated scout workers identify nearby "host" ant colonies suitable for attack.

During the attack the slavemaker ants steal host pupae and take them back to their own colony.

The pupae are imprinted on the odour of the slavemaker colony and grow up to perform all of the ordinary worker tasks.

This exploitation of another species' workforce is called social parasitism.

In their study published in Animal Behaviour, researchers from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany theorised that slavemaker ants chose "easy targets" over more strongly defended colonies as they offered the lowest risk.

The ants in Sebastian Pohl's study acted in the opposite manner: raiding parties were more likely to attack stronger colonies.

"At first, we were quite surprised, as we expected that attacking slavemaker colonies prefer host colonies that provide a better benefit to risk ratio," Mr Pohl explained.

"We hence had to look at the slavemakers' decision in more detail and had to consider more aspects of the complete raiding behaviour."


Mr Pohl and his colleagues identified that the "slave raids" presented considerable risk to P. americanus.

In small slavemaker colonies consisting of one queen, two to five workers and 30 to 60 slaves, scout ants were very valuable.

It was essential that scouts made the right decision about suitable raid targets or "host colonies" without being discovered and attacked.

"Losing a single worker might very likely be synonymous with losing half of the colony members," Mr Pohl told the BBC.

Therefore, a smaller number of scouting events and subsequent raids presented the lowest risk to the slavemaker colony.

However, the colony still needed new slaves to be able to survive to the next season.

From their behaviour, researchers suggested that the scout ants associated strong colonies with high numbers of pupae and a high benefit.

The tactic of fewer raids on stronger targets consequently offered the best risk to benefit ratio.

P. americanus are 2-3mm in size and live in the deciduous forests of the northeastern USA and adjacent Canadian regions.

Due to their small size a whole colony can inhabit one hollow acorn.

By Ella Davies

Earth News reporter

'Bigfoot of ants' found (again) (via Chad Arment)

This ant Bigfoot was unknown until more than 60 years ago, when it was discovered by a biologist in Concord, N.C., and named as a new species by an eminent Harvard University biologist in 1949. It then disappeared until an NC State doctoral student in biology, Benoit Guenard, found a pair of ants under a rock outside his apartment complex in Cary, on a warm January day.


Unaware he’d unearthed the legendary ant species, Guenard photographed the two ants and then gently placed them back under the rock, so they could make their way back to their queen.

No one has reported seeing the Bigfoot ants since.

A new species
In the late 1940s, a biologist named D. L. Wray found some ants within the ant genus Amblyopone around Concord, N.C. These ants, content to eat centipedes and live hidden underground or under leaves and rocks, had two known species in North America when Wray made his discovery – Amblyopone oregonensis, which live predominantly in northwestern North America and Amblyopone pallipes, which live nearly everywhere else across the continent.

At least one of the ants collected by Wray in Concord was Amblyopone pallipes, as would be expected. But one of the ants didn’t look like the others – it had a rounder head, a smaller set of toothlike projections near its mandibles than in other species, and other differences. Wray’s find came to the attention of one of the fathers of modern ant biology, Bill Brown, who worked at Harvard. Based solely on this one dead ant from Concord, Brown named a new species – Amblyopone trigonignatha.

In ant-study circles, though, many have since questioned Brown’s judgment. Maybe what he had named was a mutant – a weird individual of the common species of Amblyopone. In subsequent years, no one could find a single Amblyopone trigonignatha ant; it seemed nothing more than a pipe dream, a red-headed stepchild of the more common Amblyopone pallipes species.

Until, that is, NC State’s Guenard found a few slow-moving ants outside his apartment complex.


Messin’ with Sasquatch
Guenard doesn’t take ants lightly. A specialist in ant ecology who studies under Dr. Rob Dunn, Guenard has spent hundreds of hours creating maps of every known ant genus in the world. It’s a “click on an ant genus and a map pops up to show you where it lives” project that takes constant vigilance and a whole lot of knowledge and attention to detail. But when he saw the ants outside his apartment, Guenard didn’t collect them. Maybe it was the warm (for January) day. Maybe he was feeling especially magnanimous. Maybe he wanted to spare his neighbors an exterminator’s bill. But instead of collecting the Bigfoot of ants, all Guenard took was some photographs.

At least, he says now with a wry smile, the photos were in focus.

Those pictures, though, revealed something interesting. Recently, an ant blogger – such people do exist – appropriately named Alex Wild found something unusual while trolling through Guenard’s online photos of the ants of North Carolina. Channeling the Harvard biologist Bill Brown, he saw individual ants that did not look like Amblyopone pallipes but instead looked like Brown’s rare ant, Amblyopone trigonignatha.

Wild sent an e-mail to Guenard and copied another ant specialist, Brian Fisher, at the California Academy of Sciences. Fisher concluded that the photos, indeed, captured Bigfoot.

Calling all myrmecologists
So Guenard renews the call to all myrmecologists – those who undertake the scientific study of ants – and any other naturalists, particularly those living in the Piedmont regions of North Carolina, Georgia and South Carolina, to look for more of what is still North America’s rarest ant.

Guenard, and the ant-studying community, still have lots of questions about the Bigfoot of ants. Why is this particular ant so hard to find? Why it is different from other species of the same genus? Why does it seem to be relatively active during the cool months of the year?

As can be expected, Guenard has spent an inordinate amount of his time looking for Bigfoot in the past few weeks.

So far he’s had no luck finding Amblyopone trigonignatha. But he and an ant-collecting colleague did find two big colonies of the Proceratium silaceum ant, which feeds only on the eggs of spiders.

Don’t worry, he collected them.

Provided by North Carolina State University
October 14, 2010 By Mick Kulikowski

'Bigfoot of ants' found (again) (via Chad Arment)

This ant Bigfoot was unknown until more than 60 years ago, when it was discovered by a biologist in Concord, N.C., and named as a new species by an eminent Harvard University biologist in 1949. It then disappeared until an NC State doctoral student in biology, Benoit Guenard, found a pair of ants under a rock outside his apartment complex in Cary, on a warm January day.


Unaware he’d unearthed the legendary ant species, Guenard photographed the two ants and then gently placed them back under the rock, so they could make their way back to their queen.

No one has reported seeing the Bigfoot ants since.

A new species
In the late 1940s, a biologist named D. L. Wray found some ants within the ant genus Amblyopone around Concord, N.C. These ants, content to eat centipedes and live hidden underground or under leaves and rocks, had two known species in North America when Wray made his discovery – Amblyopone oregonensis, which live predominantly in northwestern North America and Amblyopone pallipes, which live nearly everywhere else across the continent.

At least one of the ants collected by Wray in Concord was Amblyopone pallipes, as would be expected. But one of the ants didn’t look like the others – it had a rounder head, a smaller set of toothlike projections near its mandibles than in other species, and other differences. Wray’s find came to the attention of one of the fathers of modern ant biology, Bill Brown, who worked at Harvard. Based solely on this one dead ant from Concord, Brown named a new species – Amblyopone trigonignatha.

In ant-study circles, though, many have since questioned Brown’s judgment. Maybe what he had named was a mutant – a weird individual of the common species of Amblyopone. In subsequent years, no one could find a single Amblyopone trigonignatha ant; it seemed nothing more than a pipe dream, a red-headed stepchild of the more common Amblyopone pallipes species.

Until, that is, NC State’s Guenard found a few slow-moving ants outside his apartment complex.


Messin’ with Sasquatch
Guenard doesn’t take ants lightly. A specialist in ant ecology who studies under Dr. Rob Dunn, Guenard has spent hundreds of hours creating maps of every known ant genus in the world. It’s a “click on an ant genus and a map pops up to show you where it lives” project that takes constant vigilance and a whole lot of knowledge and attention to detail. But when he saw the ants outside his apartment, Guenard didn’t collect them. Maybe it was the warm (for January) day. Maybe he was feeling especially magnanimous. Maybe he wanted to spare his neighbors an exterminator’s bill. But instead of collecting the Bigfoot of ants, all Guenard took was some photographs.

At least, he says now with a wry smile, the photos were in focus.

Those pictures, though, revealed something interesting. Recently, an ant blogger – such people do exist – appropriately named Alex Wild found something unusual while trolling through Guenard’s online photos of the ants of North Carolina. Channeling the Harvard biologist Bill Brown, he saw individual ants that did not look like Amblyopone pallipes but instead looked like Brown’s rare ant, Amblyopone trigonignatha.

Wild sent an e-mail to Guenard and copied another ant specialist, Brian Fisher, at the California Academy of Sciences. Fisher concluded that the photos, indeed, captured Bigfoot.

Calling all myrmecologists
So Guenard renews the call to all myrmecologists – those who undertake the scientific study of ants – and any other naturalists, particularly those living in the Piedmont regions of North Carolina, Georgia and South Carolina, to look for more of what is still North America’s rarest ant.

Guenard, and the ant-studying community, still have lots of questions about the Bigfoot of ants. Why is this particular ant so hard to find? Why it is different from other species of the same genus? Why does it seem to be relatively active during the cool months of the year?

As can be expected, Guenard has spent an inordinate amount of his time looking for Bigfoot in the past few weeks.

So far he’s had no luck finding Amblyopone trigonignatha. But he and an ant-collecting colleague did find two big colonies of the Proceratium silaceum ant, which feeds only on the eggs of spiders.

Don’t worry, he collected them.

Provided by North Carolina State University
October 14, 2010 By Mick Kulikowski

Genomes of Two Separate Ant Species Sequenced

August 27th, 2010

An international collaboration of scientists has just released the results of a new investigation, which managed to sequence the full genomes of two socially-divergent ant species. The finding can be used to derive more data on the role of epigenetics in aging and behavior.

Generally, the concept of epigenetics is used to refer to the field of genetic sciences which deals with studying the inherited changes that a body exhibits in its appearance (phenotype) and gene expression.

Studying this concept is one of the main goal in biology today, but two researchers at the Arizona State University (ASU) are now taking a more unconventional approach to understanding its role/

They are part of a team that is using the fully-sequenced genome of ants from the species Camponotus floridanus and Harpegnathos saltator to understand epigenetics.

The group also contains researchers from research institutions and organizations in New York, China, Pennsylvania, and Denmark.

The ASU crew is made up of School of Life Sciences assistant professor Jurgen Liebig and postdoctoral fellow Navdeep Mutti, who works in the former's lab.

“With the genome sequences and gene expression analyses of our two ant species, we show the potential of ants as a new system to study the epigenetic foundations of aging and developmental, reproductive and behavioral plasticity,” explains Liebig.

He is also a researcher at the ASU Center for Social Dynamics and Complexity, in the university's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

The international research effort was led by Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator Danny Reinberg, who is a professor of biochemistry at New York University (NYU) Langone Medical Center.

Details of the work were published in the August 27 issue of the esteemed journal Science.

“Ants are extremely social creatures and their ability to survive depends on their community in a very similar way to humans. Whether they are workers, soldiers or queens, ants seem to be a perfect fit to study whether epigenetics influences behavior and aging,” explains Reinber.

He also holds an appointment as a member of the NYU Cancer Institute. “In studying the genomes of these two ants, we were fascinated by the different behaviors and different roles that the worker ants develop,” he adds.

“Since every ant in the colony starts with the same genetic information, the different neuronal connections that specify the behavior appropriate for each social rank, must be controlled by epigenetic mechanisms,” the researcher explains further.

“The findings could potentially help us learn more about the effect of epigenetics on brain function in humans,” Reinber concludes.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Genomes-of-Two-Separate-Ant-Species-Sequenced-153968.shtml

Fossilised mind control, 48 million years ago

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2010/08/ant-with-a-fungus-growing-out.html

Fossilised mind control, 48 million years ago
00:01 18 August 2010
Picture of the day

This carpenter ant (Camponotus leonardi) is caught in the throes of a fungus-induced death grip. It has clamped itself to a leaf 25 centimetres above a forest floor in Thailand, and died.

The reason is growing out of the back of its head. The reddish-brown stalk is made by a fungus called Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, which has invaded the ant's body and manipulated its behaviour. The exposed position is ideal for releasing spores.

It turns out this parasitic mind-control is at least 48 million years old. David Hughes of Harvard University and colleagues discovered fossilised leaves of this age in Messel, Germany that bore characteristic "death grip" scars, suggesting that ants once clamped themselves onto them.

It is the first time this sort of behavioural control has been discovered in the fossil record, and supports the idea that the ants and fungi have been locked in an evolutionary arms race for many millions of years.

Journal reference: Biology Letters, DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2010.0521 (in press)

Flying Ant Swarms

Trent FM noticed huge swarms of flying ants in Nottingham city centre on Monday night and now we know why, it's their mini mating season this week.

We saw people at bus stops trying to swipe the ants away or covering their eyes as they walked through town.
Apparently, they've been all over Notts, you've been telling us on Facebook that they've been crawling over lawns and houses in Arnold, Ilkeston, Mapperly, Bulwell, Newark, Carlton, Bilborough, Nuthall, Kirkby in Ashfield, Eastwood and Rainworth. The big swarms only last a day in one area though because the females pick one day a year to mate, when the temperature's right. Afterwards, the male ants die.

Andrew Chick is an insect expert at Nottingham Trent Uni: "The actual ants only fly once in their life, so they have to learn very quickly, it tends to be a bit of a crash course in flying."

And Andrew can explain why there seemed to be thousands in Nottingham city centre on Monday:
"The common black ant is one ant that is able to colonise under paving slabs and of course, in the city centre, there are quite a few slabs that they can colonise underneath."

http://www.trentfm.co.uk/article.asp?id=1885287

Smelling Scenery in Stereo: Desert Ants Perceive Odor Maps in Navigation

ScienceDaily (Mar. 9, 2010) — Scientists of the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena have investigated another navigational skill of desert ants. These ants are already well-known for their remarkable visual orientation: they use a sun compass along with a step counter and visible landmarks to locate their nest after foraging for food. After the research team from Jena recently discovered that these ants also use olfactory cues to pinpoint their nests, they conducted new experiments: they revealed that the animals can not only locate an odour source, but also use the distribution of different odours in the vicinity of their nests in a map-like manner. The scientists found that the ants need both their antennae for this odour-guided navigation: they smell the scenery in stereo.

The research is published in the journal Animal Behaviour.

The desert ant Cataglyphis fortis is an insect native to the inhospitable salt-pans of Tunisia. To pinpoint the nest -- a tiny hole in the desert ground -- after foraging for food, Cataglyphis combines several navigation systems: a sun compass, a path integrator (the ant literally counts its steps), and visual recognition of landmarks.

Recently, Kathrin Steck, Bill Hansson and Markus Knaden, neuroethologists at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, discovered that local odours also play an important role in the insect's orientation (Frontiers in Zoology, 2009, Vol. 6 No. 5): ants learn to associate a smell with their nest and distinguish this smell from others. But the researchers wanted to know if the insects are also able to recognize odour patterns that emerge, when several odour sources are located at different positions around the nest. And if so, they asked, do ants need both their antennae like stereo receivers just as we employ two eyes and two ears for spatial perception?

"We conducted two key experiments," says Kathrin Steck, PhD student at the institute. "First we marked four odour sources surrounding the nest entrance with the substances methyl salicylate, decanal, nonanal, and indole, and got the ants trained on them. If these four odour points were shifted away from the nest in the original arrangement, the ants repeatedly headed for the odours, even though the nest wasn't there anymore. If we rearranged the odour sources relative to each other, the ants were completely confused."

Therefore the researchers assumed that ants do not "think" one-dimensionally -- i.e. they do not associate the nest with only one smell -- but multi-dimensionally, i.e., they relate an odour landscape to their nest. The odour landscape comprising the four substances was monitored with the help of a special measuring technique: the scientists used a specific photoionisation detector to determine the distribution of the odour substances in space and time.

Spatial perception can easily be acquired if two separate sensory organs are available, such as two eyes for visual orientation. In the case of the ants, this would be their two antennae. "With this assumption, the second key experiment seemed obvious: We tested ants that only had one antenna," Markus Knaden, the leader of the study, explains. In fact, ants with only one sensory device were unable to make use of the odour landscape for navigation.

Stereo smelling in animals is not new -- rats and humans are thought to have this ability as well. This new study shows that ants smell in stereo, but not only that: "In our experiments we demonstrated that ants successfully use stereo smelling for navigation in the desert," says Bill Hansson, director at the institute.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100309102527.htm

Rare beetles found at Blakeney National Nature Reserve

RIGHT: A rare type of Rove Beetle has
been spotted at Blakeney Point

Two species of beetle that are new to Norfolk have been discovered as part of 187 different beetle varieties found at Blakeney National Nature Reserve.

Nine experts found a Rove and a Fungus Beetle as part of a survey on "small, but important wildlife".

They also found 41 lichen species, 24 types of spider and five types of ant.

"We are indebted to these wonderful volunteers," said Stuart Warrington, National Trust nature conservation advisor.

"Without them we just would not know how important Blakeney Point is for insects and other invertebrates," he added.

The full names for the new Norfolk beetles are the Red Data Book Rove Beetle called Phytosus nigriventris and a nationally scarce Fungus Beetle called Leiodes ciliaris.

The survey, which took place in September 2009, also unveiled a Sap Beetle Nitidula carnaria, which had not been recorded in Norfolk since the 19th Century, and the Clown Beetle Gnathoncus nanus with only its second appearance in recent history.

Nationally rare ant species Myrmica specioides were also discovered.

Successful summer

The survey rounded off a successful summer for wildlife at Blakeney Point, famously known for its seals, as its breeding birds had a good season with the Sandwich Tern colony growing to 3100 pairs, up from 2400 pairs in 2008.

Other highlights were the 86 pairs of Little Terns that nested on the Point's shingle beaches and produced 52 fledglings and 13 pairs of Ringed Plover, which raised 12 chicks.

"The success of the terns depends on a whole range of factors including a supply of small fish, good weather and tides, and not too much disturbance," said David Wood, National Trust head warden at Blakeney.

"Last summer's successes were thanks to good conditions, the hard work of staff and volunteers and the understanding and support of visitors and the local community," he added.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/norfolk/hi/people_and_places/nature/newsid_8516000/8516903.stm
(Submitted by Lindsay Selby)

Bacterial gut symbionts are tightly linked with the evolution of herbivory in ants

Broadly speaking, ants have two different feeding strategies. A large proportion of all species are "carnivorous," meaning that they are generalist predators feeding on other small animals or scavenging on their remains. Some, however, are "herbivorous". This is not to say that they only eat plants; rather, the bulk of their diets consist of plant-derived matter. For example, some forage on sticky fluids produced by plants to attract ants, called extra-floral nectar; others feed on the processed plant sap excreted by plant-sucking insects such as scale insects and aphids. Herbivorous ants are likely to be a highly under-estimated component of the global fauna as there are many tropical forest canopy specialists among them, and the forest canopy remains to this day surprisingly unexplored.

It has long been a mystery how herbivorous ant species gain all the nutrients they need. Their plant-derived diet comprises essentially water and sugars; it is deficient in protein and/or the nitrogen-based compounds that are the building blocks of proteins. Carnivorous ants face few such nutritional difficulties, as their diet tends to contain all the chemical compounds they require. Most ants are not renowned for being associated with microbes—the most famous suite of on-board microbial symbionts in insects is found in termites, whose guts harbor bacteria that facilitate the digestion of the woody material that constitutes the termite diet—but it has been recently hypothesized that herbivorous ants might host a set of indigenous symbionts that provide the missing components of the herbivorous ants' diets.

We tested this hypothesis by using molecular genetic techniques to look for the presence of microbes in 283 species of ants from 18 of the 21 ant subfamilies. We were able to classify each ant species as carnivorous or herbivorous based on the amount of heavy and light nitrogen (15N/14N) within the ants' tissues. By uniting the two datasets, we were then able to determine whether microbial symbionts were particularly associated with herbivorous ants.

The short answer is, yes. Bacteria from an order called Rhizobiales tend to be present in the guts of herbivorous ants but not carnivorous ones. Remarkably, this group of bacteria is well known for containing microbes that associate with leguminous plants and are capable of nitrogen fixation—converting atmospheric nitrogen into compounds that are biologically accessible and useful. So herbivorous ants likely make up for their dietary deficiencies by hosting an on-board squadron of bacteria in their guts capable of enriching nitrogen through fixation or alternative routes.

To determine whether the observed trends of gut symbionts in herbivorous ants was confounded in some way by the ants' history, we analyzed the distribution of herbivory and gut symbionts on the ant family tree—or phylogeny—and assessed how often these had evolved. A very striking pattern emerged: herbivory has arisen multiple times in the ants, and at least five of these unrelated herbivorous lineages associate symbiotically with Rhizobiales bacteria. It, thus, seems likely that the acquisition of nutritional gut bacteria has enabled the evolution and maintenance of herbivorous, nitrogen-poor diets across the ants.

We are still just beginning to gauge the centrality of microbes in ecology, especially in systems like this one where their role has been under-appreciated. This is a good example of how microbes once again provide the missing piece of the evolutionary jigsaw puzzle.

###

This work was carried out in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, the Department of Biology at Drexel University, and the Department of Zoology at Field Museum of Natural History. Research was supported by grants from the Baker Fund, the Tides Foundation, Harvard University Center for the Environment, the Green Memorial Fund of Harvard University, the Putnam Expeditionary Fund of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, and the National Science Foundation.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-12/fm-bgs120109.php

Bacterial gut symbionts are tightly linked with the evolution of herbivory in ants

Broadly speaking, ants have two different feeding strategies. A large proportion of all species are "carnivorous," meaning that they are generalist predators feeding on other small animals or scavenging on their remains. Some, however, are "herbivorous". This is not to say that they only eat plants; rather, the bulk of their diets consist of plant-derived matter. For example, some forage on sticky fluids produced by plants to attract ants, called extra-floral nectar; others feed on the processed plant sap excreted by plant-sucking insects such as scale insects and aphids. Herbivorous ants are likely to be a highly under-estimated component of the global fauna as there are many tropical forest canopy specialists among them, and the forest canopy remains to this day surprisingly unexplored.

It has long been a mystery how herbivorous ant species gain all the nutrients they need. Their plant-derived diet comprises essentially water and sugars; it is deficient in protein and/or the nitrogen-based compounds that are the building blocks of proteins. Carnivorous ants face few such nutritional difficulties, as their diet tends to contain all the chemical compounds they require. Most ants are not renowned for being associated with microbes—the most famous suite of on-board microbial symbionts in insects is found in termites, whose guts harbor bacteria that facilitate the digestion of the woody material that constitutes the termite diet—but it has been recently hypothesized that herbivorous ants might host a set of indigenous symbionts that provide the missing components of the herbivorous ants' diets.

We tested this hypothesis by using molecular genetic techniques to look for the presence of microbes in 283 species of ants from 18 of the 21 ant subfamilies. We were able to classify each ant species as carnivorous or herbivorous based on the amount of heavy and light nitrogen (15N/14N) within the ants' tissues. By uniting the two datasets, we were then able to determine whether microbial symbionts were particularly associated with herbivorous ants.

The short answer is, yes. Bacteria from an order called Rhizobiales tend to be present in the guts of herbivorous ants but not carnivorous ones. Remarkably, this group of bacteria is well known for containing microbes that associate with leguminous plants and are capable of nitrogen fixation—converting atmospheric nitrogen into compounds that are biologically accessible and useful. So herbivorous ants likely make up for their dietary deficiencies by hosting an on-board squadron of bacteria in their guts capable of enriching nitrogen through fixation or alternative routes.

To determine whether the observed trends of gut symbionts in herbivorous ants was confounded in some way by the ants' history, we analyzed the distribution of herbivory and gut symbionts on the ant family tree—or phylogeny—and assessed how often these had evolved. A very striking pattern emerged: herbivory has arisen multiple times in the ants, and at least five of these unrelated herbivorous lineages associate symbiotically with Rhizobiales bacteria. It, thus, seems likely that the acquisition of nutritional gut bacteria has enabled the evolution and maintenance of herbivorous, nitrogen-poor diets across the ants.

We are still just beginning to gauge the centrality of microbes in ecology, especially in systems like this one where their role has been under-appreciated. This is a good example of how microbes once again provide the missing piece of the evolutionary jigsaw puzzle.

###

This work was carried out in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, the Department of Biology at Drexel University, and the Department of Zoology at Field Museum of Natural History. Research was supported by grants from the Baker Fund, the Tides Foundation, Harvard University Center for the Environment, the Green Memorial Fund of Harvard University, the Putnam Expeditionary Fund of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, and the National Science Foundation.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-12/fm-bgs120109.php