FORMICA Yessensis Foreli) ' (FORMICA) Iselgo Higashi, Zbolagical Institute, F21culty of Sle:Ience
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The EcologicalSocietyEcological Society of Japan Htspmvkts (Jap. J. EcoL), 28:307-317, 1978 TASK AND AREAL CONSERVATISM AND IN[[ERNEST DRIFI[NG ' IN A RED WOOD ANT FORMICA (FORMICA) YEssENSIS FORELi) ' iSelgo HIGAsHI, Zbolagical institute, F21culty of Sle:ience. Hbkkaidb Uhiver:sity, Smporo 060 =f7hk77VanyAeefi tr$oeretijmlcrdt6ca#es&pteemags tilatspt±\-\sssttz\&z m E cae SYTiOPSiS HiGAsHl, Seigo (Fac. Sci., Hokkaido Univ. Sapporo), 1978. Task and area1 conservatism and internest drifting in a red wood aiit R)rmica (Fbrmiea) yessensis FoREL. Jap. J. Ecol., 28 : 307-317. formi'ca (l7brmica) yessensis FbREL has a supercoIonial system. Each worker ean visit any con- specific nests without receiving hostiHty. Although this systern suggests irregular roaming of workers in the field, the present study clarifies that many, ifnot al1, workers are fairly conservative to panicular tasks or working areas for a certain peried. all made at Ishikari Shore, Hokkaido, Japan. As a introduction part of this serial study, the present paper deals Some ant species of Fbrmica rLij2i-giroup, to which with task and areal conservatism as well as inter- E yessensis belongs, have been studied extensively nest drifting, mainly based upan the observations in Europe in connection with their application to of individually marked wotkers. forest protection for the foIIowing reasons: 1. Many students have repdrted en worker poly- Nests can be artificially translocated. 2. Absence of ethism in ants (OKLAND, 1931, GOTscH, 1933, KirL, internest hostility due to polydomous system en- 1934, DoBRzANsKA, 195,8, 1959, OTTo, 1958, ables free internest visits among workers. 3. High WALtis, 1964, HoRsuaNN, 1972, 1973, etc.). nest density can be maintained if some conditions, Studying several species'of Fbrmica and other e.g. abundant food or adequate sunlight, are satis- genera under both field tind laboratory conditions, Nest is large the maximum DoBRzANsKA 1959) clarified the attachment fied.4. population (in (1958, 'working to tasks areFs some 5 × 105 to 1 × 106 in E polyctena FORsTER and particular qnd in 1× 105 in F: rtofli L., G6sswALD, l951; 8× 103 to workers. In E yessensis, it was suggested that 1 × 104 in E truncorttm FABRicius, Sf[Tz, 1939; starting from intranest tasks larger workers' change 5.1 × 104 in E yessertsis., ITo, 1973>. 5. Workers are to hunters while Smaller ones to aphid milkers edicient hufiters of various insect pests, both adults during their life span, which is shorter than bne and iarvae. 6. Nearly innoxious exoept for pro- year in most workers (80%) (HiGAsHi, 1974, 1976). tection of aphid fbr milking. ln Japan no study has But individual partiality in polyethism has not been boen made with E yessensis from su ¢ h practical confirmed under field conditions before the present point ofview. Our research group has studied vari- study. ous aspects of the biology and the ecology ef this Before going further I wish to express my sinoere polydomous species, e.g. nest distribution (ITo, gratitude to Dr. Sh6ichi F. SAKAGAMi for his peni- 1971), seasonal population trends and nest struc- nent guidance through the pfesent study. tures (ITo, 1973), hibernation (IMAMuRA, 1974), Methods an{l Results nuptial fiight and internest relationship (ITo & IMAMuRA, 1974),worker polyethism (HiGAsHi, From June 30 to July 3, 1973, 412 workers were l974), and growth pattern of nests (HiGAsHl, 1976), captured on nest A and individually marked in with using combi- Accepted Apr. 12, 1978 laboratory quick-dryingdyes and 1) Biological and Ecological Studies of a Supercelonial nations of four colors (red,yellow, green ant fibrmiea ptessensis FoREL VII. purple). After the rnarks applied to gaster, thorax 307 NII-Electronic Library Service The EcologicalSocietyEcological Society ofJapanof Japan Vol.28,No. 4 H 7K th ma \ de su Dec., 197S and legs had dried, the ants were released on A on formanoe around A were fo11owed once to '5 thrice July 4. From July to 21 their presence and per- per day, in total 21 times, spending two to eight hours to complete a tour around the nest. Once a Wlthered grasses va ot twigt marked worker had been found, her distance arid as Sond direction from A and her performed task were ' recorded. When the same worker was found again Msinensis g during the same tour, the record was taken only if ntemctell rmft. she was more than 1 m distant from the first place or was engaged in a task different from that in the first detection. On July 8, 34 additional workers caught at milking aphids were marked and released on A. They were traced from July 9 to 21, in total 13 times, together with the workers released on July 4. NAO2 Nest A was in zone C in Ishikari Shore (cfi ITo, v ts/ 1 971); where grasses were so sparse that finding and tracing of marked workers were relatively easy. Ul Nest density was relatively lower around nest A than in other parts of zone C. The part east of A axlelxttomIl' was covered with Etluisentum hiemale (Fig. 1), making the detection of the marked workers diM- 8 cult. Some crowds of MTscanthus sinensis oocurred vtQ in.the western and eastern parts visited by many aphid milkers. In other parts grass density was very sparse. Excluding A there were nine nests within a - 7m- radius of 7 m froM A, and these and ttu:ee other Fig. 1. 0bservation area in July, 1973. nests near the area we.re patted at each tour in order A: SurfaQe of 4est A. Srnall alphabetical letters to lure oui marked workers having drifted in them. hain show'Topographygntrances. The same census was repeated in mid September B: of the area within 7 m frorn nest because of A. .Roman numerals show nests. when worker activity became sluggish the cold. On another nest B about 1.5 km distant skeensts eAbandoned nest gsc from A 103' workers were caught and individually marked in the laboratory on September 13 and 14. They were released on B on September 15 and traced twice or thrice per day frorn 16 to 21, in total 1 1 times. B was also in zone C as A but was almost isolated frorn other inhabited nests, Only two un- inhabited nests occurred within a radius of 7 m around B (Fig. 2). The two nesits were probably abandohed by emigration of inhabitants to other hibernation hests (HiGAsm, 1976). The grass densi- ty was extremely low except fbr some crowds of A4: slnensls. Fig 3 shows the relationship between rediscovery frequency and number of workers. Among 412 ・4 workers relea$ed on July 139. were never redis- covered and 58 only onoe. The number of workers rediscovered twice or more showed an unimodal distribution with a peak of 48 workers rediscovered four tlmos. The number of workers rediscovered i times, i.e. Fig. 2. Topography of the area within 7 m from nest B at n censuses is expected to be by the observed in September, S973. F(i), given 308 NII-Electronic Library Service The EcologicalSocietyEcological Society of Japan Vol, 28, No. 4 JAPANESE JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY Dec., 1978 following formula, provided the chance of redis- covery was nearly equal in all tours and most rnarked workers stayed inside the inspected area: F(i)=:N・nCi・Pi-(1-P)n-i ' in which IY is total number of marked workers and P the mean of chances (P) by which each worker is rediscovered at each census. As mentioned later, each worker, on ¢ e fixed to particular working area, does not quickly disperse SgetnE=z to other areas, rather tending to stay in her own area. This habit should increase the probability of rediscoyery for each worker. In the present obser- Ol234S67e9 ro ll 12 IS vation, however, rnany workers were never or only onoe rediscovered. Some of them might have died becauSe of the marking, others were probably lost by drifting away in the earlier stage of the obser- vation period before they were fixed to a particular working area. Actually, about 62 % (36158) of only onoe rediscovered workers were observed during Rtdtscorvery f;equencr the first three days. Fig. 3. Relationship between [ediscovery frequency Excluding them, the maximum F(i) was obtained and number of workers, at = = 21). Therefore, and N are estimated i 4 (n P The dotted line in A connects the yalues calculated about O.2 220 respectively, because, to have as and by the formula: = the maximum of F(i) at i 4, P must be within the F(i);220・2iCi・O.2t・O.82t-tl2-2iCi・(lf4)i range which satisfies the fo11owing two conditions at the same time: lated number (220). b) During this observatiog marked wotkers were rediscovered 1,060 times in 2iCB-P3・(1-P)i8<2iQ・P4・(1-P)i7 ......(1) total, and the mean number of rediscoyered 2iC,・P5・(1-P)16<2iC,・ju-(1-P)i7 ......<2) workers per one tour was 50 (1,060/21). Thus, From 1) and 2) P is calculated as O.18<P<O.22 about 22% of 231 workers were rediscoyered per or P # O,2. Putting F(4) = 48 and P == O.2, we tour, and the value is close to the calculated One obtain N == 220 from IV × 2iC4 × O.24 × O.8i7 = (20%). 48rThen 'suggests The result of the above calculation that most of not or only once rediscoyered workers may F(i)=220 × 2iCixO.2ixO.82i-il2・21Ci(1/4)i be lost in the earlier period by death, drifting away -- of the The calculated values of F(i) for i O, 1, 2,,..are or mainly staying in subterranean parts in areas where shown in Fig.