Abstract
The splitting of Lasius niger and the description of a new species, Lasius platythorax (Seifert, 1991), brought about a revision of the relative habitat spectra of the two species, which are fairly clear-cut and well known in Central Europe. On the islands of the Baltic Sea, which depending on size are in early or later stage of primary succession, the identity of the pioneer coloniser species, L. niger, has not been updated. Here, we took nest samples in four main habitats to study the occurrence of the two sibling species, and the hypogaeic L. flavus, along a successional gradient from the smallest islets to larger islands and the mainland. Lasius niger was the pioneer species (the single species of one-species islets), and L. platythorax established itself during later successional stages and outnumbered L. niger in the studied mainland habitats, except shore meadows. We discuss possible reasons why L. platythorax was absent in the earliest successional stages, because on the mainland, it frequently nested in rock crevices on outcrops, a nest site often used by L. niger on smaller islands, but rarely on rock and forest outcrops on the mainland. Lasius flavus co-occurred on part of the small islands with L. niger, which it outnumbered on large islands and the mainland by nest numbers, and habitat and nest-site diversities.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Czechowski W. 2004. Scarcity of sites suitable for nesting promotes plesiobiosis in ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Entomol. Fennica 15: 211–218
Czechowski W. and Ślipiński P. 2008. No Lasius platythorax Seifert (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) in the Urban greenery of Warsaw? Pol. J. Ecol. 56: 541–544
Czechowski W. and Vepsäläinen K. 2009. Territory size of wood ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae): a search for limits of existence of Formica polyctena Först., an inherently polygynic and polycalic species. Ann. Zool. 59: 179–187
Czechowski W. and Vepsäläinen K. 2010. Replacement of species in wood ant colonies artificially established on islands in southern Finland. Pol. J. Ecol. 58: 793–799
Czechowski W., Radchenko A., Czechowska W. and Vepsäläinen K. 2012. The Ants of Poland with Reference to the Myrmecofauna of Europe. Fauna Poloniae, vol. 4 (ns). Natura optima dux Foundation, Warsaw
Kakkuri J. and Virkki H. 2004. Maa nousee. In: Jääkaudet (Koivisto M., Ed), WSOY, Helsinki, pp 168–178 [in Finnish]
Korczyńska J., Gajewska M., Pilot M., Czechowski W. and Radchenko A. 2010. Genetic polymorphism in “mixed” colonies of wood ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) in southern Finland and its possible origin. Eur. J. Entomol. 107: 157–167
Kulmuni J., Seifert B. and Pamilo P. 2010. Segregation distortion causes large-scale differences between male and female genomes in hybrid ants. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 107: 7371–7376
Lindström M. 2003. Register över öar, holmar, kobbar och skär i Tvärminneområdet. Nordenskiöld-Samfundets Tidskrift 62: 3–49 [in Swedish]
Nevalainen A. 2010. VACCIA Action 5 deliverable 3: Vaccia-GIS portal. Tvärminne Zoological Station. http://maps.tvarminne.helsinki.fi/index_uk.htm
Oinonen E.A. 1956. On the ants on the rocks and their contribution to the afforestation of rocks in southern Finland. Acta Entomol. Fennica 12: 1–212 [In Finnish with English summary]
Oksanen J., Blanchet F.G., Kindt R., Legendre P., Minchin P.R., O’Hara R.B., Simpson G.L., Solymos P., Stevens M.H.H. and Wagner H. 2012. vegan: Community Ecology Package. R package version 2.0-4. http://CRAN.R-project.org/package=vegan
Pisarski B. and Vepsäläinen K. 1989. Competition hierarchies in ant communities (Hymenoptera, Formicidae). Ann. Zool. 42: 321–328
Pisarski B., Vepsäläinen K., Ranta E., Ås S., Haila Y. and Tiainen J. 1982. A comparison of two methods of sampling island ant communities. Ann. Entomol. Fennici 48: 75–80
Ranta E., Vepsäläinen K., Ås S., Haila Y., Pisarski B. and Tiainen J. 1983. Island biogeography of ants (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) in four Fennoscandian archipelagoes. Acta Entomol. Fennica 42: 64
R Core Team. 2012. R: a language and environment for statistical computing, version 2.15.1. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. http://www.R-project.org/
Savolainen R. 1990. Colony success of the submissive ant Formica fusca within territories of the dominant Formica polyctena. Ecol. Entomol. 15: 79–85
Savolainen R. 1991. Interference by wood ant influences size selection and retrieval rate of prey by Formica fusca. Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 28: 1–7
Savolainen R. and Vepsäläinen K. 1988. A competition hierarchy among boreal ants: impact on resource partitioning and community structure. Oikos 51: 135–155
Savolainen R. and Vepsäläinen K. 1989. Niche differentiation of ant species within territories of the wood ant Formica polyctena. Oikos 56: 3–16
Seifert B. 1991. Lasius platythorax n.sp., a widespread sibling species of Lasius niger (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Entomol. Gener. 16: 69–81
Seifert B. 2007. Die Ameisen Mittel- und Nordeuropas. Lutra Verlags- und Vertriebsgesellschaft, Tauer
Ślipiński P., Żmihorski M. and Czechowski W. 2012. Species diversity and nestedness of ant assemblages in an urban environment. Eur. J. Entomol. 59: 197–206
Sundström L., Keller L. and Chapuisat M. 2003. Inbreeding and sex-biased gene flow in the ant Formica exsecta. Evolution 57: 1552–1561
Väänänen S., Vepsäläinen K. and Savolainen R. 2010. Indirect effect in boreal ant assemblages: territorial wood ants protect potential slaves against enslaving ants. Ann. Zool. 60: 57–67
Vepsäläinen K. and Pisarski B. 1982. Assembly of island ant communities. Ann. Zool. Fennici 19: 327–335
Vepsäläinen K. and Savolainen R. 1990. The effect of interference by formicine ants on the foraging of Myrmica. J. Anim. Ecol. 59: 643–654
Vepsäläinen K., Savolainen R., Tiainen J. and Vilén J. 2000. Successional changes of ant assemblages: from virgin and ditched bogs to forests. Ann. Zool. Fennici 37: 135–149
Vepsäläinen K., Ikonen H. and Koivula M.J. 2008. The structure of ant assemblages in an urban area of Helsinki, southern Finland. Ann. Zool. Fennici 45: 109–127
Acknowledgments
We carried out the field research within the program of scientific co-operation between the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Finland. Tvärminne Zoological Station, University of Helsinki, provided working facilities and a pleasant environment for the study. Magnus Lindström helped in finding names for a couple of skerries in the Tvärminne island register, and two anonymous reviewers provided useful advice for improving the manuscript.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Czechowski, W., Vepsäläinen, K. & Radchenko, A. Ants on skerries: Lasius assemblages along primary succession. Insect. Soc. 60, 147–153 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00040-012-0278-y
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00040-012-0278-y