2017

North-Western Journal of Zoology

Rocznik: 2017 | Tom: 13 | Numer: 1

artykuł naukowy

angielski

EN Many ant species inhabiting typical desert habitats utilize a risk-prone strategy when foraging for food. They forage near the critical thermal limit because of prey availability or a low competitive status. In a temperate climate, sandy habitats are also inhabited by xerothermic ant species e.g. Formica cinerea (Mayr, 1853) or Manica rubida (Latreille, 1802). The aim of the experiment was to estimate if these two species increase their thermal-related foraging risk. During a laboratory experiment, workers of both species could freely forage on sandy arenas heated from neutral temperatures up to 50 degrees C. Generally, the results indicate that workers of both species reduced the foraging time with increasing soil temperature - i.e., utilized a riskaverse strategy - when no food was available. However, when workers of F. cinerea had access to the food, they foraged with the same intensity in the range of temperatures from 38 degrees C up to 47 degrees C. Temperatures above 45 degrees C may be considered as stressful; therefore, workers of F. cinerea utilized a risk-prone strategy when they had access to the food.

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http://biozoojournals.ro/nwjz/content/v13n1/nwjz_e161101_Slipinski.pdf

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