Abstract
In a field experiment, great tits Parus major foraged on a pair of artificial trees that were supplied with equal amounts of food. Wood ants Formica aquilonia were excluded from one tree, but foraged on the other. Great tits visited the tree without ants more frequently, and for longer periods of time, than the tree with ants. The time of foraging visits by tits in the tree with ants decreased as ant activity there increased. These results are the first to show that interference competition from ants can influence a bird’s choice of microhabitat in which to forage, as well as alter the time it spends foraging there.
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Received: 10 March 1995/Accepted after revision: 9 September 1995
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Haemig, P. Interference from ants alters foraging ecology of great tits. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 38, 25–29 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/s002650050213
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s002650050213