Food Collection by a Scottish Ant Community

Abstract

Feeding system of a 4-species community of rather primitive ants was studied: Formica fusca, Myrmica rubra, M. scabrinodis and Leptothorax acervorum. Small sources of sugar were monopolized, especially if near nest, and occupation by a group of workers was main essential to this, although largest species, fusca, sometimes dislodged others. Ability to find a source and mobilize feeders on it was a greater guarantee of success than fighting ability. Hunting distribution of rubra was asymmetrical about nest, even in isolated colonies. In dense groups of colonies, nesting in rotting tree stumps and foraging into long herbs, same individual asymmetry existed, with tendency for these areas to fit together so that whole area was searched. These rubra homeranges were entirely overlapped by much larger ranges of fusca and acervorum. Three of the spp. varied in their propensity to ascend vegetation. M. scabrinodis foraged principally on soil surface and perhaps below, fusca readily climbed vegetation, while rubra was inter-mediate.