Adventures Among Ants - Mark W. Moffett [174]
10. A few other species may on occasion come close to engaging in warfare. Honeybees attack weak colonies to steal honey (Tom Seeley, personal communication). Researchers have observed piles of dead nasute termites, suggesting recent battles involving mostly the worker caste, and hundreds of workers will respond en masse to kill even a single conspecific (James Traniello, personal communication; SC Levings, ES Adams 1984, Intra- and interspecific territoriality in Nasutitermes in a Panamanian mangrove forest, J. Anim. Ecol. 53: 705– 714; BL Thorne 1982, Termite-termite interactions: Workers as an agnostic caste, Psyche 89: 133–150). However, workers in some termite species that live in huge colonies mix freely without aggression (Scott Turner, personal communication). Male chimpanzees are known to conduct predatory raids to kill neighboring chimpanzees, usually one at a time, which if repeated can devastate adjacent communities (as is often the case for small human bands; see note 30); see Jane Goodall, The Chimpanzees of Gombe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986).
11. JT Longino, NM Nadkarni 1990, A comparison of ground and canopy leaf litter ants in a neotropical montane forest, Psyche 97: 81–93.
12. SKA Robson, RJ Kohout 2005, Evolution of nest-weaving behaviour in arboreal nesting ants of the genus Polyrhachis, Aust. J. Entomol. 44: 164–169; BL Fisher, HG Robertson 1999, Silk production by adult workers of the ant Melissotarsus emeryi in South African fynbos, Insectes Soc. 46: 78–83.
13. Victor Rico-Gray and Paulo S. Oliveira, The Ecology and Evolution of Ant-Plant Interactions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007).
14. HT Huang, P Yang 1987, The ancient cultured citrus ant, BioScience 37: 665–671; P Van Mele 2008, A historical review of research on the weaver ant Oecophylla in biological control, Agr. For. Entomol. 10: 13–22.
15. J. Offenberg, MG Nielsen, DJ Macintosh, S Havanon, S Aksornkoae 2004, Evidence that insect herbivores are deterred by ant pheromones, Proc. R. Soc. Lond. Ser. B 271: S433–S435.
16. SH Wittwer, FG Teubner 1959, Foliar absorption of mineral nutrients, Annu. Rev. Plant Physiol. 10: 13–30.
17. J Offenberg, MG Nielsen, DJ Macintosh, S Aksornkoae, S Havanon 2006, Weaver ants increase premature loss of leaves used for nest construction in Rhizophora trees, Biotropica 38: 782–785.
18. Gina Wimp, personal communication; GM Wimp, TG Whitham 2001, Biodiversity consequences of predation and host plant hybridization on an aphidant mutualism, Ecology 82: 440–452.
19. A difficulty for this idea is that Homoptera tend to represent a bigger drain on a plant than do nectaries; see, e.g., F Ito, S Higashi 1991, An indirect mutualism between oaks and wood ants via aphids, J. Anim. Ecol. 60: 463–470. The opposite hypothesis, that nectaries evolved to distract ants from tending harmful insects, therefore seems unlikely; see JXI Becerra, DL Venable 1989, Extrafloral nectaries: A defense against ant-Homoptera mutualisms?, Oikos 55: 276–280.
20. N Blüthgen, K Fiedler 2002, Interactions between weaver ants Oecophylla smaragdina, homopterans, trees, and lianas in an Australian rain forest canopy, J. Anim. Ecol. 71: 793–801.
21. C Djieto-Lordon, A Dejean 1999, Tropical arboreal ant mosaics: Innate attraction and imprinting determine nest site selection in dominant ants, Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 45: 219–225.
22. In one study, trees without Oecophylla grew faster, which the authors attribute to “overcompensation”; i.e., the trees invested more in growth when under attack by herbivores: J Offenberg, MG Nielsen, DJ Macintosh, S Havanon, S Aksornkoae 2005, Lack of ant attendance may induce compensatory plant growth, Oikos 111: 170–178.
23. TH Jones, DA Clark, AA Edwards, DW Davidson, TF Spande, RR Snelling 2004, The chemistry of exploding ants, Camponotus spp. (cylindricus complex), J. Chem. Ecol. 30: 1479–1492.
24. A Tofilski, MJ Couvillon, SEF Evison, H Helanterä, EJH Robinson, FLW Ratnieks 2008, Preemptive defensive self-sacrifice by ant workers, Am. Nat. 172: E239–E243.
25. LMA