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All sugars ain't sweet: selection of particular mono-, di- and trisaccharides by western carpenter ants and European fire ants
Ants select sustained carbohydrate resources, such as aphid honeydew, based on many factors including sugar type, volume and concentration. We tested the hypotheses (H1–H3) that western carpenter ants, Camponotus modoc, seek honeydew excretions from Cinara splendens aphids based solely on the presen...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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The Royal Society
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8371376/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34430049 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.210804 |
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author | Renyard, Asim Gries, Regine Lee, Jan Chalissery, Jaime M. Damin, Sebastian Britton, Robert Gries, Gerhard |
author_facet | Renyard, Asim Gries, Regine Lee, Jan Chalissery, Jaime M. Damin, Sebastian Britton, Robert Gries, Gerhard |
author_sort | Renyard, Asim |
collection | PubMed |
description | Ants select sustained carbohydrate resources, such as aphid honeydew, based on many factors including sugar type, volume and concentration. We tested the hypotheses (H1–H3) that western carpenter ants, Camponotus modoc, seek honeydew excretions from Cinara splendens aphids based solely on the presence of sugar constituents (H1), prefer sugar solutions containing aphid-specific sugars (H2) and preferentially seek sugar solutions with higher sugar content (H3). We further tested the hypothesis (H4) that workers of both Ca. modoc and European fire ants, Myrmica rubra, selectively consume particular mono-, di- and trisaccharides. In choice bioassays with entire ant colonies, sugar constituents in honeydew (but not aphid-specific sugar) as well as sugar concentration affected foraging decisions by Ca. modoc. Both Ca. modoc and M. rubra foragers preferred fructose to other monosaccharides (xylose, glucose) and sucrose to other disaccharides (maltose, melibiose, trehalose). Conversely, when offered a choice between the aphid-specific trisaccharides raffinose and melezitose, Ca. modoc and M. rubra favoured raffinose and melezitose, respectively. Testing the favourite mono-, di- and trisaccharide head-to-head, both ant species favoured sucrose. While both sugar type and sugar concentration are the ultimate cause for consumption by foraging ants, strong recruitment of nest-mates to superior sources is probably the major proximate cause. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8371376 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | The Royal Society |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-83713762021-08-23 All sugars ain't sweet: selection of particular mono-, di- and trisaccharides by western carpenter ants and European fire ants Renyard, Asim Gries, Regine Lee, Jan Chalissery, Jaime M. Damin, Sebastian Britton, Robert Gries, Gerhard R Soc Open Sci Ecology, Conservation and Global Change Biology Ants select sustained carbohydrate resources, such as aphid honeydew, based on many factors including sugar type, volume and concentration. We tested the hypotheses (H1–H3) that western carpenter ants, Camponotus modoc, seek honeydew excretions from Cinara splendens aphids based solely on the presence of sugar constituents (H1), prefer sugar solutions containing aphid-specific sugars (H2) and preferentially seek sugar solutions with higher sugar content (H3). We further tested the hypothesis (H4) that workers of both Ca. modoc and European fire ants, Myrmica rubra, selectively consume particular mono-, di- and trisaccharides. In choice bioassays with entire ant colonies, sugar constituents in honeydew (but not aphid-specific sugar) as well as sugar concentration affected foraging decisions by Ca. modoc. Both Ca. modoc and M. rubra foragers preferred fructose to other monosaccharides (xylose, glucose) and sucrose to other disaccharides (maltose, melibiose, trehalose). Conversely, when offered a choice between the aphid-specific trisaccharides raffinose and melezitose, Ca. modoc and M. rubra favoured raffinose and melezitose, respectively. Testing the favourite mono-, di- and trisaccharide head-to-head, both ant species favoured sucrose. While both sugar type and sugar concentration are the ultimate cause for consumption by foraging ants, strong recruitment of nest-mates to superior sources is probably the major proximate cause. The Royal Society 2021-08-18 /pmc/articles/PMC8371376/ /pubmed/34430049 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.210804 Text en © 2021 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 | Ecology, Conservation and Global Change Biology Renyard, Asim Gries, Regine Lee, Jan Chalissery, Jaime M. Damin, Sebastian Britton, Robert Gries, Gerhard All sugars ain't sweet: selection of particular mono-, di- and trisaccharides by western carpenter ants and European fire ants |
title | All sugars ain't sweet: selection of particular mono-, di- and trisaccharides by western carpenter ants and European fire ants |
title_full | All sugars ain't sweet: selection of particular mono-, di- and trisaccharides by western carpenter ants and European fire ants |
title_fullStr | All sugars ain't sweet: selection of particular mono-, di- and trisaccharides by western carpenter ants and European fire ants |
title_full_unstemmed | All sugars ain't sweet: selection of particular mono-, di- and trisaccharides by western carpenter ants and European fire ants |
title_short | All sugars ain't sweet: selection of particular mono-, di- and trisaccharides by western carpenter ants and European fire ants |
title_sort | all sugars ain't sweet: selection of particular mono-, di- and trisaccharides by western carpenter ants and european fire ants |
topic | Ecology, Conservation and Global Change Biology |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8371376/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34430049 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.210804 |
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