ants

The organized societies of ants include short-lived worker castes displaying specialized behavior and morphology and long-lived queens dedicated to reproduction...

..we reveal that symbiotic nitrogen fixation facilitates the cultivation of specialized fungal crops by leaf-cutter ants. By using acetylene reduction and stable isotope experiments, we demonstrated that N2 fixation occurred in the ..

..Unlike the ubiquitous n-alkanes and monomethylalkanes, there is a huge diversity of species-specific dimethylalkanes that makes them likely candidates for species and nest-mate discrimination signals...

..the effects of plant genotype (28 genotypes; 1064 plants), aphid density, and the presence/absence of mutualistic ants in affecting the per capita population growth of a specialist aphid herbivore, as well as the effects of plant ..

..We have investigated how male parentage varies with colony kin structure and colony size in 50 species of ants, bees, and wasps in a phylogenetically controlled comparative analysis...

..if reproductive effects were predicted from reductions in herbivory and to identify characteristics of the plants, ants and environment that explained variation in ant protection...

..the larger the image transformations (caused by the landmarks) in the ant's visual field, the faster the homing ants localize the goal. While approaching the goal the ants do not try to fixate the landmarks frontally...

..the ant genus Azteca, a Neotropical group of arboreal species, we aimed to determine the extent to which the ants use predation and/or aggressiveness to protect their host plants from defoliating insects...

Fungus-growing ants engage in mutualistic associations with both the fungus they cultivate for food and actinobacteria (Pseudonocardia spp.) that produce selective antibiotics to defend that fungus from specialized fungal parasites...

..uses a stepwise commitment scheme and a quorum rule to integrate information gathered by numerous individual ants visiting several candidate homes...

In animal societies, chemical communication plays an important role in conflict and cooperation. For ants, cuticular hydrocarbon (CHC) blends produced by non-nestmates elicit overt aggression...

..two decades, studies of anatomy, behavior, and, most recently, DNA sequences have clarified the phylogeny of the ants at the subfamily and generic levels...

..uses a technique known as tandem running to lead another ant from the nest to food--with signals between the two ants controlling both the speed and course of the run...

..study highlights the importance of social space and shows that constraints on social space can significantly affect colony behaviour and energy use in ants. We discuss the implications of our findings regarding social insects in general.

Desert ants, foraging in cluttered semiarid environments, are thought to be visually guided along individual, habitual routes. While other navigational mechanisms (e.g...

Desert ants of the genus Cataglyphis undergo an age-related polyethism from interior workers involved in brood care and food processing to short-lived outdoor foragers with remarkable visual navigation capabilities...

..metabolic capacity of hosts living on nutrient-deficient diets, while the bacteria harbored by omnivorous carpenter ants are involved in nitrogen recycling...

..While introducing a new concept of flexibility in the view-based matching theory, this study creates a link between two major topics of animal navigation: rotational errors in vertebrates and view-based navigation in insects...

..americanus: slave-making colonies fared better in their sympatric host population, as they contained more slave-making ant workers and slaves at the end of our 27-month experiment...

..We conclude that queen-derived hydrocarbon labels inform workers about the presence of a fertile queen and thereby regulate worker reproduction...

..We studied the fungus Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, a locally specialized parasite of arboreal Camponotus leonardi ants. Ant-infecting Ophiocordyceps are known to make hosts bite onto vegetation before killing them...

..One might question how these multiple patterns emerge. Do ants actively initiate the formation of such patterns by modulating the emission of an attracting signal such as the ..

..In mammals, there is mounting evidence that multiple systems of perceptual discrimination based on different neural circuits emphasize either fast responses or accurate treatment of stimuli depending on the context...

..To this end we have analysed ants'-perspective views of a habitat within which desert ant navigation is well studied...

Leafcutter ants (Formicidae: tribe Attini) are well-known insects that cultivate basidiomycete fungi (Agaricales: Lepiotaceae) as their principal food...

..This experiment suggests that group diversity, be it genetic or environmental, improves the mean resistance of group members to the fungal infection, probably through the sharing of physiological or behavioural defences...

Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) predation on army ants (Dorylus, subgenus Anomma) is an impressive example of skillful use of elementary technology, and it has been suggested to reflect cultural differences among chimpanzee communities...

Insectivorous birds and ants co-occur in most terrestrial communities, and theory predicts that emergent properties (i.e., nonadditive effects) can determine their combined influence on arthropods and plants...

Plant-ants live in a mutualistic association with host plants known as "myrmecophytes" that provide them with a nesting place and sometimes with extra-floral nectar (EFN) and/or food bodies (FBs); the ants can also attend sap-..

..has been an upsurge of interest and debate about whether social insects-central-place foragers such as bees and ants-acquire and use cognitive maps, which enable the animal to steer novel courses between familiar sites ...

The ancient and highly evolved mutualism between fungus-growing ants and their fungi is a textbook example of symbiosis...

..Desert ants traveling between their nest and a food site develop stable, visually guided routes that can wind through desert ..

..Argentine ants, Linepithema humile, use both genetic and environmentally derived cues to discriminate nestmates from nonnestmates...

Despite the economic and ecological importance of ants, genomic tools for this family (Formicidae) remain woefully scarce...

..as a tool to accelerate the inventory and analysis of diversity for hyperdiverse arthropods is tested using ants in Madagascar...

..this idea with a comparative analysis of female mating frequencies in 267 species of eusocial bees, wasps, and ants. We found that mating with a single male, which maximizes relatedness, is ancestral for all eight independent ..

..Our study revealed exceptionally high levels of multiple infection, with all ants harboring four or five distinct Wolbachia strains. Four of these strains were present in all ants analyzed...

We reviewed the evidence on the role of ants as plant biotic defenses, by conducting meta-analyses for the effects of experimental removal of ants on plant herbivory and fitness with data pooled from 81 studies...

..Finally, pharmacological activation of PKG increases defense and reduces foraging behavior. Thus, PKG signaling plays a critical role in P. pallidula behavioral shifts...

..5 million years ago (MYA). The aim was to study the relationship of Wolbachia and its ant hosts in terms of vertical and horizontal transmission of the bacteria...

Queens of ants and bees normally obtain a lifetime supply of sperm on a single day of sexual activity, and sperm competition is expected to occur in lineages where queens receive sperm from multiple males...

Even on short routes, ants can be guided by multiple visual memories. We investigate here the cues controlling memory retrieval as wood ants approach a one- or two-edged landmark to collect sucrose at a point along its base...

When offered a permanent food source, central Australian desert ants, Melophorus bagoti, develop individually distinct, view-based foraging routes, which they retrace with amazing accuracy during each foraging trip...

..Here, we argue that ants and social bee species provide an excellent complementary system to study ageing, and this for two reasons: first, ..

..a meta-analysis of ant-plant protection mutualisms to examine the generality of context-dependent effects of ants on herbivory and plant performance (growth, reproduction)...

Although the intracellular bacterium Wolbachia is ubiquitous in insects, it has a unique relationship with New World ants on which particular bacterial strains have specialized...

..The evolution of queen number from ancestral polygyny to derived monogyny appears to be associated with a switch in the behavior of ergatoid males from fighting to mutual tolerance...

..The sequence is similar to apolipophorin-III, an exchangeable lipid-binding protein. Fire ant apolipophorin-III is expressed in the antenna as well as the head, thorax and abdomen...

..The immune response was lower when more males contributed to the stored sperm, indicating that there might be an additional cost of mating or storing genetically different ejaculates...

Army ants have long been suspected to represent an independent origin of multiple queen-mating in the social Hymenoptera...

..Functional predictions concerning the acquisition, retention, and integration of memories of distances and of landmarks are also reviewed, illuminating the behavioral ecology of spatial cognition...

..The ants have an ancient obligate mutualism with fungi they cultivate for food...

..on plants but avoiding those sheltering ant nests (82%), to, finally, wasps nesting in association with arboreal ants known to divert army ant raids (11.5%)...

Desert ants (Cataglyphis fortis) were trained to follow a fixed route around a barrier to a feeder...

In this investigation, detection dogs are trained and used in identifying red imported fire ants, Solenopsis invicta Buren, and their nests...

..Here, we propose a novel yeast species named Trichosporon chiarellii sp. nov. based on the description of 34 isolates; the type strain is strain FCP 540806(T) (=CBS 11177(T))...

The aggressive behavior of ants that protect plants from herbivores in exchange for rewards such as shelter or food is thought to be an important form of biotic defense against herbivory, particularly in tropical systems...

..The resistance to the parasite was compared between small groups of ants of either high or low genetic diversity...

..Nonetheless, here we report the first experimental evidence that ants, Cataglyphis cursor, use precisely directed rescue behavior to free entrapped victims; equally important, they ..

The Gp-9 gene in fire ants represents an important model system for studying the evolution of social organization in insects as well as a rich source of information relevant to other major evolutionary topics...

..This modification limits the decrease in ICF success (-34%). A tremendous range of offspring phenotypes associated with quality-quantity trade-offs make ants competitive in diverse habitats.

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..The tripartite mutualism between fungus-growing ants, their fungal cultivars, and antibiotic-producing bacteria exemplifies symbiotic complexity...

..We offer a biological explanation for both adherence to the power functions and associated deviations, along with supporting evidence...

..nigriceps are either unable to recognize alien conspecifics or that the costs of ignoring workers from foreign colonies are sufficiently low to favor low levels of inter-colony aggression in this species...

The haplodiploid sex-determination system of ants gives rise to conflict between queens and workers over colony sex ratios, and the female-biased allocation ratios seen in many species suggest that workers often prevail in this conflict...

..We analyzed an 8-year record of stable isotope data on Argentine ants (Linepithema humile) from southern California to infer how the trophic position of this widespread invasive species ..

..By selectively using sex for somatic growth and parthenogenesis for germline production, C. cursor has taken advantage of the ant caste system to benefit from the advantages of both sexual and asexual reproduction...

Colony queen number, a major feature of social organization in fire ants, is associated with worker genotypes at the gene Gp-9...

..While the role of symbiotic ants in protecting plants from stem- and leaf-feeding herbivores has been intensively studied, the relationship between ..

..The similarity coefficients of the ant communities between S. invicta infested and un-infested lichee orchard, wasteland and lawn were 0.6316, 0.5882 and 0.2941, respectively...

..Devil's gardens are created by Myrmelachista schumanni ants, which nest in D. hirsuta trees and kill other plants using formic acid as an herbicide...

..The problem of inferring the evolutionary history and constructing the phylogenetic tree with high performance has become one of the major problems in computational biology...

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..The results demonstrate that cheating can be widespread in even the most cooperative of societies and illustrate that identical principles govern social evolution in highly diverse systems...

..The method was applied directly to the abdomen of queens, workers and males of Ectatomma vizottoi ants, without any special sample preparation...

b>Ants are social and are haplodiploid. This combination may allow the evolution of a variety of unusual genetic pathways to achieve reproductive success...

..This remarkable system may be widely applicable throughout termites, although it cannot be universal, and may provide a window into causal aspects of the molecular biology of caste determination...

..This highlights the need to consider the relevant geographical scale when investigating the role of inclusive fitness as a selective force maintaining reproductive altruism...

..We discuss several hypotheses on the possible causes of this skew in policing tasks. This is the first non-primate example of specialization in policing tasks without direct selfish interests...

..In Shenzhen, the relationships between the interval distances and semivariances were described by 7 spherical models, and the ranges were 14.5 m, 11.2 m, 10.8 m, 17.6 m, 11.3 m, 9.9 m and 12.8 m, respectively, with an average of 12.6 m...

..as a result of this species being introduced into new environments and synthesize recent research on Argentine ants from the perspective of population genetics, recognition systems, and the mechanisms that may underlie their ..

..functions of aphid colony protection and honeydew collecting was revealed and described in working groups of ants, which are constant in composition...

..Agent-based modelling of ants as individual complex X-machines facilitates study of the mechanisms underlying the emergence of trails and aids ..

..groups is one of the few available options for developing inferences regarding the early eusocial evolution of ants and termites...

..A stochastic approach of collective choices made by ants faced with different sources is developed to account for the fluctuations inherent to the recruitment process...

..relatedness, and nest size along a gradient of time since colonization in an invading population of Argentine ants (Linepithema humile) in Haleakala, Hawaii...

..We show that the inquiline social parasites of the North American seed harvester ants are monophyletic, descending from one of the known hosts (Pogonomyrmex barbatus) in the recent past and shifting ..

..Our results suggest that storage protein content has evolved in concert with colony-founding strategies in the genus Pogonomyrme and provides a good functional marker for colony-founding strategy...

..This provides a possible explanation for the fact that ants sort their brood so that the youngest brood (which are most in need of care) are placed in the middle...

..These costs might influence the outcome of conflicts over male production in ants. This paper presents the first quantification of energetic costs of aggressive behavior regulating reproduction in ..

..To our knowledge, these are the first experiments on inquiline workers and the first to provide evidence that inquiline workers have an adaptive role...

..Therefore, while workers supply and blend the recognition signal, the queen affects worker-worker interaction by reducing social motivation and tolerance of alien conspecifics...

..Our results suggest sympatric speciation of Myrmica inquilines. Sympatric speciation is probably facilitated by the social biology and ecology of Myrmica, with polygyny as a prerequisite for the evolution of intraspecific parasitism...

..In closed cage-studies uptake and retention of transgenes by arthropods that do not transmit T. cruzi (ants, crickets, fleas and cockroaches) but-may be exposed to CRUZIGARD will be determined...

..it appears that traditional cultural beliefs and practices contribute to and support the sobriety process; this wan-ants further study and is the primary focus ofthe proposed qualitative study...

..it appears that traditional cultural beliefs and practices contribute to and support the sobriety process;this wan-ants further study and is the primary focus ofthe proposed qualitative study...

..The ANTs energetically link the mitochondria with the cytosol by exchanging mitochondrial ATP for cytosolic ADP...

..achieved during myoblast fusion? We propose a series of experiments to investigate the mechanisms by which Ants and Loner are targeted to sites of fusion...

..achieved during myoblast fusion? We propose a series of experiments to investigate the mechanisms by which Ants and Loner are targeted to sites of fusion...

..Robert Renthal, Ph.D. Genetic determinants of social behavior in ants. Kay Robbins, Ph.D. Data analysis and visualization in support of computational neuroscience...

..Robert Renthal, Ph.D. Genetic determinants of social behavior in ants. Kay Robbins, Ph.D. Data analysis and visualization in support of computational neuroscience...

..Robert Renthal, Ph.D. Genetic determinants of social behavior in ants. Kay Robbins, Ph.D. Data analysis and visualization in support of computational neuroscience...

..Applicant's Abstract): This application proposes a clinical pilot study of anterior nucleus thalamic stimulation (ANTS) as a treatment for intractable epilepsy, in order to lay the groundwork for a larger randomized, controlled ..

..Two of the target alkaloids have been isolated from poison frogs and two from leaf- cutter ants. The total synthesis will serve to establish the absolute configuration and structure of these compounds...

..By deciphering fundamental mechanisms that influence bacterial genome evolution, this study will contribute to a predictive framework for understanding how microbes evolve. ..

..By deciphering fundamental mechanisms that influence bacterial genome evolution, this study will contribute to a predictive framework for understanding how microbes evolve. ..

..By deciphering fundamental mechanisms that influence bacterial genome evolution, this study will contribute to a predictive framework for understanding how microbes evolve. ..

..Proteobacteria, including free- living species of enterobacteria and related bacterial endosymbionts of carpenter ants, tsetse flies, and aphids...

..Individual ants use chemically mediated interactions, in part, to assess the global needs of the colony...

..abstract_text> ..

..These studies, when successfully completed, should provide a more comprehensive understanding of the role of the microvasculature as a site of regulation of insulin action in health and insulin resistant states. ..

..Furthermore, the peptides represented by the selected candidate biomarkers will be identified. Finally, the performance of the algorithm will be compared with existing methods. ..

..Specific Aim 3. To determine whether dysregulation of p16ink4a and PTCH (patched) acts as a modifier of theTS phenotype in transgenic mice expressing dominant negative tuberin. ..