| Title: | Alarm Pheromone Composition and Behavioral Activity in Fungus-Growing Ants |
| Author(s): | Norman VC; Butterfield T; Drijfhout F; Tasman K; Hughes WO; |
| Address: | "School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, Brighton, East Sussex, BN1 9QG, UK. V.Norman@sussex.ac.uk. School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, Brighton, East Sussex, BN1 9QG, UK. Chemical Sciences Research Centre, Keele University, Staffordshire, UK" |
| DOI: | 10.1007/s10886-017-0821-4 |
| ISSN/ISBN: | 1573-1561 (Electronic) 0098-0331 (Print) 0098-0331 (Linking) |
| Abstract: | "Chemical communication is a dominant method of communication throughout the animal kingdom and can be especially important in group-living animals in which communicating threats, either from predation or other dangers, can have large impacts on group survival. Social insects, in particular, have evolved a number of pheromonal compounds specifically to signal alarm. There is predicted to be little selection for interspecific variation in alarm cues because individuals may benefit from recognizing interspecific as well as conspecific cues and, consequently, alarm cues are not normally thought to be used for species or nestmate recognition. Here, we examine the composition of the alarm pheromones of seven species of fungus-growing ants (Attini), including both basal and derived species and examine the behavioral responses to alarm pheromone of Acromyrmex leaf-cutting ants, the sister genus to the highly studied Atta leaf-cutting ants. We find surprisingly high interspecific variation in alarm pheromone composition across the attine phylogeny. Interestingly, the active component of the alarm pheromone was different between the two leaf-cutting ant genera. Furthermore, in contrast to previous studies on Atta, we found no differences among morphological castes in their responses to alarm pheromone in Acromyrmex but we did find differences in responses among putative age classes. The results suggest that the evolution of alarm communication and signaling within social insect clades can be unexpectedly complex and that further work is warranted to understand whether the evolution of different alarm pheromone compounds is adaptive" |
| Keywords: | "Age Factors Aggression/drug effects *Animal Communication Animals Ants/*drug effects/physiology Behavior, Animal/*drug effects Cues Pheromones/*chemistry/*pharmacology Plant Leaves Volatilization Alarm pheromone Attini Caste Division of labor Leaf-cutting;" |
| Notes: | "MedlineNorman, Victoria C Butterfield, Thomas Drijfhout, Falko Tasman, Kiah Hughes, William O H eng 2017/03/02 J Chem Ecol. 2017 Mar; 43(3):225-235. doi: 10.1007/s10886-017-0821-4. Epub 2017 Feb 28" |
