@article {461, title = {Relations between nests of Messor wasmanni in Greece}, journal = {Insectes Sociaux}, volume = {35}, year = {1988}, month = {Jan-03-1988}, pages = {1-18}, abstract = {

Foraging behaviour of Messor wasmanni, a seed collecting ant, foraging along trails up to 15m long in open flat ground in Greece, is described. These ants foraged in daytime on about one day in three, the nest entrance being otherwise closed with discarded remains of the plant material. They started approximately at dawn and material. They started approximately at dawn and continued until the ground surface temperature reached 40\–43\°C. Of the order of 20\–30,000 individual foraging expeditions were made from the nest per day involving about 5,000 individual ants. They dispersed from the end of the trail and searched individually in limited areas of a few square feet (say half m2). Nests at a density of about 70 to the hectare were spaced in a pattern which was not random. Trails go out radially from each nest, usually a single trail in any day. Foraging areas for different nests overlapped but the chance of trails intersecting was low. An intersection was seen only once in approximately 500 trails from about a dozen nests examined in detail. The two trails met at right angles and the shorter one broke up at the junction, the ants from it going on across the other trail in the same general direction but more dispersed than before. All nests tended to forage after rain but the net synchronizing effect of this tendency was small, the nests in general foraging independently of one another in time. Calculation of the probability of trail intersection, allowing for the chance of adjacent nests having trails on the same day, and assuming a random trail direction together with the observed distribution of trail length gave a low value (7) for the expected number of intersections. No evidence of aggressive behaviour between different nests was found. Individuals, marked with paint and transferred artificially to a new nest, survived and foraged among those of their new nest. On three ocasions small subsidiary nests were found from which ants went to and fro along a trail to the main nest and on one occasion eggs and larval stages were transferred. On many occasions groups of ants dug small holes in the ground adjacent to a trail, which are most easily explained as incipient subsidiary nests.

}, issn = {0020-1812}, doi = {10.1007/BF02224134}, url = {http://link.springer.com/10.1007/BF02224134}, author = {Harkness, Robert D. and Isham, V.} } @article {460, title = {An odd activity of an ant (Cataglyphis bicolor); "visiting"}, journal = {Insectes Sociaux}, volume = {38}, year = {1991}, month = {Jan-03-1991}, pages = {45-49}, abstract = {

An unexplained form of behaviour connecting nests of an ant Cataglyphis bicolor F. is described. Individuals from one nest visit another wandering around the nest entrance, for periods of up to half an hour or more. Their behaviour is quite distinct from any seen in normal foraging. These individuals come from the upper end of the range of size; more frequently but not always from a larger to a smaller nest. Nests are normally antagonistic. These ants back away rapidly from an ant of the nest visited.

}, keywords = {Ant, Cataglyphis bicolor, odd behaviour}, issn = {0020-1812}, doi = {10.1007/BF01242712}, url = {http://link.springer.com/10.1007/BF01242712}, author = {Harkness, M. L. R. and Harkness, Robert D.} } @article {459, title = {Central place foraging by an ant (Cataglyphis bicolor Fab.): a model of searching.}, journal = {Animal Behaviour}, volume = {33}, year = {1985}, month = {1985-08}, pages = {916-928}, abstract = {

A computer model of the searching activity of Cataglyphis bicolor (Fab.), based on quantitative data obtained in the field in Greece, was investigated. This ant searches for individual items of food (mainly dead arthropods) in the open on flat ground, on which its paths can be followed and mapped. The model was based on an analogy with molecular diffusion from a centre, suggested by the fact that the average distance of ants from the nest increased in proportion to the square root of time, up to a distance more than half the radius of a circle enclosing 90\% of the search area. Actual behaviour was well described by a model in which individual ants went out for the first time to search in a direction determined at random. Subsequently they went out in a straight line in a direction and to a distance related to that of the previous find before commencing a semi-random search, on a path consisting of straight portions branching at random angles, with restriction on turns in a backward direction. Individual real ants search in restricted areas, commonly sectors centred on the nest. This behaviour was reproduced in the model as were quantitative aspects of the nest behaviour. Communication between individuals was not required in the model.

}, author = {Harkness, Robert D. and Maroudas, Nicholas G.} }