Presentation Details
| The Cicadapocalypse: A Story of Ants Dominating and Discovering Dead Bodies Kiera McKee1, John Lill2, Martha Weiss3, Sean Menke1. 1Lake Forest College, Lake Forest, Illinois, USA.2George Washington University, Washington, District of Columbia, USA.3Georgetown University, Washington, District of Columbia, USA |
Abstract
We studied the ecosystem level effects of a massive and geographically widespread, “surprise” resource pulse on ant communities. We evaluate how ants, among the most abundant terrestrial consumer groups, respond to a 17-year periodical cicada emergence in northern Illinois through 10 weeks of data collection in each of 2 summers, at 5 different locations. This study analyzes the foraging decisions and aggressive interactions of ant genera in the presence and absence of a natural cicada resource pulse. We found that ants were 2 times slower to discover dead cicada baits during the emergence, indicating an abundance of food in the environment. Furthermore, we found that ants were 4 times less aggressive at cicada baits during the emergence compared to the following year. This indicates the resource pulse is satiating the ant community and thereby causing a reduction in interspecific competition. Previous literature notes that ants will prioritize either discovery or control of baits, exhibiting a dominance-discovery tradeoff. We analyze the variations in behavior between years among different ant genera to determine how resource abundance affects this dominance-discovery tradeoff.
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No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author.
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