The use of light to enhance weaver ant oecophylla longinoda latreille (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) queen catches
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Date
2017
Authors
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Publisher
Sociobiology
Abstract
Production of live weaver ant (Oecophylla longinoda and O. smaragdina)
colonies is being developed as the ants provide several ecosystem services
in agriculture and as they are used in education and research laboratories.
Founding queens needed for colony production can be caught in artificial
nests made of live leaves that are curled on trees. In this study we investigated
if the catch rate of O. longinoda queens in artificial nests could be improved by
attracting queens to trees with a light source (electric torches). We compared
catch rates of 50 artificial nests on each of eight citrus trees, four of them with
light and four without light. During two mating seasons covering 9 mating
flights we caught a total of 178 queens. However, 3.8 times more queens were
caught in the trees with light compared to trees without light. We conclude
that queen catches can be highly improved by combining artificial nests with
an attracting light source.
Description
Journal Article
Keywords
Light source, Natural predator, Founding queen, Tanzania