Dejean Alain, Corbara Bruno, Céréghino Régis, Leponce Maurice, Roux Olivier, Rossi Vivien, Delabie Jacques H C, Compin Arthur
CNRS, Écologie des Forêts de Guyane (UMR-CNRS 8172), Campus agronomique, BP 316, 97387 Kourou cedex; Université de Toulouse; UPS, INP, Ecolab, 118 route de Narbonne, 31062, Toulouse.
Insect Sci. 2015 Apr;22(2):289-94. doi: 10.1111/1744-7917.12078. Epub 2014 Apr 1.
Supercolonies of the red fire ant Solenopsis saevissima (Smith) develop in disturbed environments and likely alter the ant community in the native range of the species. For example, in French Guiana only 8 ant species were repeatedly noted as nesting in close vicinity to its mounds. Here, we verified if a shared set of biological, ecological, and behavioral traits might explain how these 8 species are able to nest in the presence of S. saevissima. We did not find this to be the case. We did find, however, that all of them are able to live in disturbed habitats. It is likely that over the course of evolution each of these species acquired the capacity to live syntopically with S. saevissima through its own set of traits, where colony size (4 species develop large colonies), cuticular compounds which do not trigger aggressiveness (6 species) and submissive behaviors (4 species) complement each other.
红火蚁（Solenopsis saevissima (Smith)）的超级蚁群在受干扰的环境中形成，并且可能会改变该物种原生范围内的蚂蚁群落。例如，在法属圭亚那，只有8种蚂蚁被反复观察到在其蚁丘附近筑巢。在此，我们验证了一组共同的生物学、生态学和行为特征是否能够解释这8种蚂蚁在红火蚁存在的情况下仍能筑巢的原因。但我们并未发现确实如此。然而，我们确实发现，它们所有都能够在受干扰的栖息地中生存。很可能在进化过程中，这些物种中的每一种都通过自身的一系列特征获得了与红火蚁共生的能力，其中蚁群规模（4种蚂蚁形成大型蚁群）、不会引发攻击性的表皮化合物（6种蚂蚁）以及顺从行为（4种蚂蚁）相互补充。
