Department of Chemistry, Oklahoma State University, 107 Physical Science, Stillwater, OK 74078, USA.
Talanta. 2010 Nov 15;83(1):216-24. doi: 10.1016/j.talanta.2010.09.010. Epub 2010 Sep 16.
Gas chromatographic (GC) profiles of cuticular hydrocarbon extracts obtained from individual and pooled ant samples were analyzed using pattern recognition techniques. Clustering according to the biological variables of social caste and colony were observed. Pooling individual extracts enhanced the recognition of patterns in the GC profile data characteristic of colony. Evidently, the contribution of the ant's individual pattern to the overall hydrocarbon profile pattern can obscure information about colony in the GC traces of cuticular hydrocarbon extracts obtained from red fire ants. Re-analysis of temporal caste and time period data on the cuticular hydrocarbon patterns demonstrates that sampling time and social caste must be taken into account to avoid unnecessary variability and possible confounding. This and the fact that foragers could not be separated from reserves and brood-tenders in all five laboratory colonies studied suggests that cuticular hydrocarbons as a class of sociochemicals cannot model every facet of nestmate recognition in Solenopsis invicta which in turn suggests a potential role for other compounds in the discrimination of alien conspecifics from nestmates.
采用模式识别技术对从单个和混合蚁样本中提取的表皮碳氢化合物的气相色谱（GC）图谱进行了分析。根据社会阶级和群体的生物学变量进行了聚类。混合个体提取物增强了对群体特征的 GC 图谱数据中模式的识别。显然，蚂蚁个体模式对总体碳氢化合物图谱模式的贡献可能会掩盖从红火蚁表皮碳氢化合物提取物中获得的 GC 痕迹中有关群体的信息。对表皮碳氢化合物模式的时间等级和时间段数据的重新分析表明，必须考虑采样时间和社会等级，以避免不必要的可变性和可能的混杂。此外，在所研究的五个实验室群体中，无法将觅食者与储备物和育雏者分开，这表明作为一类社会化学物质的表皮碳氢化合物不能模拟红火蚁中所有方面的巢内识别，这反过来又表明其他化合物在识别外来同种异体与巢内成员方面可能具有潜在作用。
