par Verhaeghe, Jean-Claude 
Référence Insectes sociaux, 29, 1, page (67-85)
Publication Publié, 1982-03
Référence Insectes sociaux, 29, 1, page (67-85)
Publication Publié, 1982-03
Article révisé par les pairs
| Résumé : | During food recruitment, three phases were recognized in the behaviour of the recruiter. a) While returning to the nest, the recruiter lays a trail with the secretion of the poison gland. This individual odour trail is rather ineffective but quickly gains effectiveness when reinforced. The recruiter appears to be able to modulate the deposit of its trail pheromone according to the quality of the food source. The probability of an ant following a trail of a given length is a linear function of the log of the concentration of the trail pheromone. Relative differences in the strength of competitive trails are thus most perceptible when the absolute concentrations of the trails in pheromone are low, i.e. at the beginning of the recruitment. b) Within the nest, the recruiter alerts its nestmates by a specific behaviour which consists of an accelerated antennal beating. Possibly, an alerting pheromone is emitted during this invitational behaviour, issued either from the mandibular or the poison gland. c) The recruiter leaves the nest followed by a small group (2 to 12 ants) of recruited nestmates. The recruited ants follow a "leading pheromone" which is secreted by the leader. Both the crushed head and the poison gland secretion proved to be attractive at close range during olfactometry experiments. However, experiments performed with dummies suggested that the latter is the source of this leading pheromone. Some recruited ants follow the trail independently of the recruiter. Group leading, however, is a more efficient way than trail laying alone to guide recruits, as judged by the proportions of ants which succesfully reached the food source by one or the other method. © 1982 Masson. |
