Conservación de la Biodiversidad, El Colegio de la Frontera Sur, Chetumal, Quintana Roo, Mexico.
El Colegio de la Frontera Sur, Tapachula, Chiapas, Mexico.
PLoS One. 2019 Jan 17;14(1):e0210739. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0210739. eCollection 2019.
A diversity of arthropods (myrmecophiles) thrives within ant nests, many of them unmolested though some, such as the specialized Eucharitidae parasitoids, may cause direct damage to their hosts. Ants are known to discriminate between nestmates and non-nestmates, but whether they recognize the strength of a threat and their capacity to adjust their behavior accordingly have not been fully explored. We aimed to determine whether Ectatomma tuberculatum ants exhibited specific behavioral responses to potential or actual intruders posing different threats to the host colony and to contribute to an understanding of complex ant-eucharitid interactions. Behavioral responses differed significantly according to intruder type. Ants evicted intruders that represented a threat to the colony's health (dead ants) or were not suitable as prey items (filter paper, eucharitid parasitoid wasps, non myrmecophilous adult weevils), but killed potential prey (weevil larvae, termites). The timing of detection was in accordance with the nature and size of the intruder: corpses (a potential source of contamination) were detected faster than any other intruder and transported to the refuse piles within 15 min. The structure and complexity of behavioral sequences differed among those intruders that were discarded. Workers not only recognized and discriminated between several distinct intruders but also adjusted their behavior to the type of intruder encountered. Our results confirm the previously documented recognition capabilities of E. tuberculatum workers and reveal a very fine-tuned intruder discrimination response. Colony-level prophylactic and hygienic behavioral responses through effective removal of inedible intruders appears to be the most general and flexible form of defense in ants against a diverse array of intruders. However, this generalized response to both potentially lethal and harmless intruders might have driven the evolution of ant-eucharitid interactions, opening a window for parasitoid attack and allowing adult parasitoid wasps to quickly leave the natal nest unharmed.
节肢动物（共生蚁）在蚁巢中茁壮成长，其中许多动物未受到干扰，尽管有些动物，如专门的 Eucharitidae 寄生蜂，可能会对其宿主造成直接损害。众所周知，蚂蚁可以区分巢内成员和非巢内成员，但它们是否能够识别威胁的强度以及是否能够相应地调整行为还没有得到充分的探索。我们的目的是确定 Ectatomma tuberculatum 蚂蚁是否会对潜在或实际的入侵者表现出特定的行为反应，这些入侵者对宿主群体构成不同的威胁，并有助于理解复杂的蚂蚁与 Eucharitidae 的相互作用。行为反应根据入侵者的类型而有显著差异。蚂蚁驱逐对蚁群健康构成威胁的入侵者（死蚂蚁）或不适合作为猎物的入侵者（滤纸、Eucharitidae 寄生蜂、非共生成年象鼻虫），但会杀死潜在的猎物（象鼻虫幼虫、白蚁）。检测时间与入侵者的性质和大小一致：尸体（潜在的污染源）比任何其他入侵者更快地被检测到，并在 15 分钟内被运到垃圾场。丢弃的入侵者的行为序列结构和复杂性不同。工蚁不仅识别和区分了几种不同的入侵者，还根据遇到的入侵者类型调整了行为。我们的结果证实了先前记录的 E. tuberculatum 工蚁的识别能力，并揭示了非常精细的入侵者识别反应。通过有效清除不可食用的入侵者，对不同类型的入侵者进行群体预防性和卫生性的行为反应，似乎是蚂蚁针对各种入侵者的最普遍和最灵活的防御形式。然而，这种对潜在致命和无害入侵者的普遍反应可能推动了蚂蚁与 Eucharitidae 的相互作用的进化，为寄生蜂的攻击打开了一扇窗，并使成年寄生蜂能够迅速离开未受伤害的原生巢。
