Adventures Among Ants - Mark W. Moffett [170]
17. J Hickson, SD Yamada, J Berger, J Alverdy, J O’Keefe, B Bassler, C Rinker-Schaeffer 2009, Societal interactions in ovarian cancer metastasis: A quorumsensing hypothesis, Clin. Exp. Metastasis, 26: 67–76.
18. A likely absence of the army ant characteristics of mass foraging and prey carriage in the Nigerian sub may represent an evolutionary loss of those features, given that it is an unidentified species belonging to Dorylus subgenus Dorylus, a group not considered “primitive” (that is, basal to other army ants); see DJC Kronauer, C Schöning, LB Vilhelmsen, JJ Boomsma 2007, A molecular phylogeny of Dorylus army ants provides evidence for multiple evolutionary transitions in foraging niche, BMC Evol. Biol. 7: 56–66.
19. This “looping” behavior was first described for an army ant, but it is widespread among recruiting ants; see H Topoff, J Mirenda, R Droual, S Herrick 1980, Behavioural ecology of mass recruitment in the army ant Neivamyrmex nigrescens, Anim. Behav. 28: 779–789.
20. R Chadab, CW Rettenmeyer 1975, Mass recruitment by army ants, Science 188: 1124–1125.
21. The species was either affinis itself or a close relative. Its subterranean tendencies are documented by M Masayuki, CE Heng, AH Ahmad 2005, Marauder ant (Pheidologeton affinis) predation of green turtle (Chelonia mydas) nest in Chagar Hutang, Redang Island and measures to protect the nests, Proc. 2nd Int. Symp. SEASTAR2000 Asian Bio-logging Sci., 55–62.
22. This is another example of recruitment overrun, which occurs in both mass-foraging and solitary-foraging species. In a similar chain reaction I’ve seen, Solenopsis invicta fire ants will depart from the food to which they’ve been recruited, fanning out as searching individuals to recruit to other food, and sometimes enough are present to catch large prey along the way.
23. Perhaps if I’d been less distracted by affinis, I would also have noticed in the same forest a particular Leptogenys that later was described as having raids convergent with army ants; see, e.g., U Maschwitz, S Steghaus-Kovac, R Gaube, H Hänel 1989, A South East Asian ponerine ant of the genus Leptogenys with army ant life habits, Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 24: 305–316.
24. The detailed developmental unfolding of trunk trails is largely unknown. To transition to a raid process, trail production must become disengaged from the discovery of food, as would be the case if foragers departing from them were to employ exploratory trails in their solitary searches for food (see chapter 16). The closest to such an “intermediate” strategy is described for a species well on its way to foraging like an army ant: see FD Duncan, RM Crewe 1994, Group hunting in a ponerine ant, Leptogenys nitida, Oecologia 97: 118–123.
9. Canopy Empires
1. Generally, I won’t distinguish the two species, as their ecology is similar.
2. WH Gotwald Jr. 1972, Oecophylla longinoda, an ant predator of Anomma driver ants, Psyche 79: 348–356.
3. The driver ants’ response was a ratcheted-up version of the runaway reaction that occurs when the big-headed Pheidole dentata ant comes under attack from fire ants and explosively abandons its nest, with hundreds fleeing in all directions; see EO Wilson 1976, The organization of colony defense in the ant Pheidole dentata, Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 1: 63–81.
4. More weaver ants are recruited to snatch workers from Dorylus columns than are required to catch the driver ants for food, suggesting the thefts may be defensive; see B Hölldobler 1979, Territories of the African weaver ant (Oecophylla longinoda), Z. Tierpsychol. 51: 201–213.
5. Sloppiness can be good, and it can even be built into the system: the advantage of a honeybee making errors about the direction to which she was recruited is comparable to a navy ship that “should fire salvoes with a considerable scatter, in the hope that at least one shell will hit a hostile ship and slow it down”; see JBS Haldane, H Spurway