Paving Behavior in Ants and Its Potential Application in Monitoring Two Urban Pest Ants, and .

Our previous study discovered that two urban pest ants, red imported fire ants, Buren (Formicidae: Myrmicinae), and ghost ants, (Fabricius) (Formicidae: Dolichoderinae), can pave viscose surfaces with particles to facilitate food search and transport. We hypothesize that this paving behavior can be applied to monitor and . In the present study, 3998 adhesive tapes, each with a food source (sausage), were placed in 20 locations around Guangzhou, China (181-224 tapes per location), and their efficiency to detect and was compared with two traditional ant-monitoring methods, baiting and pitfall trapping. Overall, was detected by 45.6% and 46.4% of baits and adhesive tapes, respectively. In each location, the percentage of adhesive tapes detecting and was similar when compared to baits and pitfall traps. However, significantly more non-target ant species showed up on bait and pitfall traps. Seven non-target ant species- Mayr (Formicidae: Myrmicinae), Smith (Formicidae: Myrmicinae), Wu & Wang (Formicidae: Myrmicinae), Forel (Formicidae: Myrmicinae), (Jerdon) (Formicidae: Myrmicinae), Mayr (Formicidae: Formicinae), and (Smith) (Formicidae: Ponerinae)-also showed tape paving behavior, but they can be easily distinguished morphologically from and . Our study showed that the paving behavior occurs in different subfamilies of ants (i.e., myrmicinae, dolichoderinae, formicinae, and ponerinae). In addition, paving behavior can potentially be used to develop more specific monitoring methods for and in urban areas in southern China.