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The feeding apparatus of ants: an overview of structure and function
Ants are a dominant family of eusocial terrestrial insects with a diversity of ecologies, lifestyles and morphologies. Ant diet preferences range from strict carnivory through omnivory to almost complete herbivory in species feeding on seeds or exudates of plant-sucking insects. While several studie...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
The Royal Society
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10577024/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37839452 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2022.0556 |
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author | Richter, Adrian Economo, Evan P. |
author_facet | Richter, Adrian Economo, Evan P. |
author_sort | Richter, Adrian |
collection | PubMed |
description | Ants are a dominant family of eusocial terrestrial insects with a diversity of ecologies, lifestyles and morphologies. Ant diet preferences range from strict carnivory through omnivory to almost complete herbivory in species feeding on seeds or exudates of plant-sucking insects. While several studies have investigated ant feeding performance on different substrates, comparatively little is known about the functional morphology of the structures involved in food uptake or their diversification across the ants. To take stock of our current knowledge, we give an overview of how adult ants ingest food, followed by a morphological description of the mouthparts, preoral space and cephalic sucking pump. The mandibles are the most prominent mouthparts and have received considerable attention in the literature, so we focus on the maxillae and labium here. We present current hypotheses for the movement patterns of these parts and discuss morphological differences among ants that may be related to their ecological diversity. Finally, we give short comparisons of the ant condition with some other insects and vertebrates, as well as an outlook summarizing gaps in our knowledge. This sets the stage for future studies elucidating the connections between ant feeding mechanisms and mouthpart evolution. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Food processing and nutritional assimilation in animals’. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10577024 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | The Royal Society |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-105770242023-10-16 The feeding apparatus of ants: an overview of structure and function Richter, Adrian Economo, Evan P. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci Articles Ants are a dominant family of eusocial terrestrial insects with a diversity of ecologies, lifestyles and morphologies. Ant diet preferences range from strict carnivory through omnivory to almost complete herbivory in species feeding on seeds or exudates of plant-sucking insects. While several studies have investigated ant feeding performance on different substrates, comparatively little is known about the functional morphology of the structures involved in food uptake or their diversification across the ants. To take stock of our current knowledge, we give an overview of how adult ants ingest food, followed by a morphological description of the mouthparts, preoral space and cephalic sucking pump. The mandibles are the most prominent mouthparts and have received considerable attention in the literature, so we focus on the maxillae and labium here. We present current hypotheses for the movement patterns of these parts and discuss morphological differences among ants that may be related to their ecological diversity. Finally, we give short comparisons of the ant condition with some other insects and vertebrates, as well as an outlook summarizing gaps in our knowledge. This sets the stage for future studies elucidating the connections between ant feeding mechanisms and mouthpart evolution. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Food processing and nutritional assimilation in animals’. The Royal Society 2023-12-04 2023-10-16 /pmc/articles/PMC10577024/ /pubmed/37839452 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2022.0556 Text en © 2023 The Authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Articles Richter, Adrian Economo, Evan P. The feeding apparatus of ants: an overview of structure and function |
title | The feeding apparatus of ants: an overview of structure and function |
title_full | The feeding apparatus of ants: an overview of structure and function |
title_fullStr | The feeding apparatus of ants: an overview of structure and function |
title_full_unstemmed | The feeding apparatus of ants: an overview of structure and function |
title_short | The feeding apparatus of ants: an overview of structure and function |
title_sort | feeding apparatus of ants: an overview of structure and function |
topic | Articles |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10577024/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37839452 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2022.0556 |
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