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Group recruitment in a thermophilic desert ant, Ocymyrmex robustior

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Abstract

Thermophilic desert ants—Cataglyphis, Ocymyrmex, and Melophorus species inhabiting the arid zones of the Palaearctic region, southern Africa and central Australia, respectively—are solitary foragers, which have been considered to lack any kind of chemical recruitment. Here we show that besides mainly employing the solitary mode of food retrieval Ocymyrmex robustior regularly exhibits group recruitment to food patches that cannot be exploited individually. Running at high speed to recruitment sites that may be more than 60 m apart from the nest a leading ant, the recruiter, is followed by a loose and often quite dispersed group of usually 2–7 recruits, which often overtake the leader, or may lose contact, fall back and return to the nest. As video recordings show the leader, while continually keeping her gaster in a downward position, intermittently touches the surface of the ground with the tip of the gaster most likely depositing a volatile pheromone signal. These recruitment events occur during the entire diurnal activity period of the Ocymyrmex foragers, that is, even at surface temperatures of more than 60 °C. They may provide promising experimental paradigms for studying the interplay of orientation by chemical signals and path integration as well as other visual guidance routines.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Christine Gutzwiller and Sibylle Wehner for their cooperation during various stages of the experiments, Joh Henschel, Thomas Nørgaard, and the staff of the Gobabeb Training and Research Centre, Namibia, for infrastructural help in various ways, Bert Hölldobler for helpful comments on Myrmecocystus mimicus, Steffen Pielström for providing us with video sequences of the recruitment behaviour of Camponotus socius, and two reviewers for helpful comments. Financial support came from the Swiss National Science Foundation (Grant no. 31-61844.00 to RW) and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Grant no. 3675/1-1 and Grant no. SFB 554 A8 to RW and WR, respectively). The experiments comply with the current law of the country in which they were performed.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zürich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057, Zurich, Switzerland

    Stefan Sommer

  2. EAWAG, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Seestrasse 79, 6047, Kastanienbaum, Switzerland

    Denise Weibel

  3. Institute of Anatomy, University of Zürich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057, Zurich, Switzerland

    Nicole Blaser

  4. Kantonsschule Olten, Hardfeldstrasse 53, 4600, Olten, Switzerland

    Anna Furrer

  5. Biocenter, University of Würzburg, Am Hubland, 97074, Würzburg, Germany

    Nadine E. Wenzler, Wolfgang Rössler & Rüdiger Wehner

  6. Brain Research Institute, University of Zürich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057, Zurich, Switzerland

    Rüdiger Wehner

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  1. Stefan Sommer
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  7. Rüdiger Wehner
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Correspondence to Rüdiger Wehner.

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Sommer, S., Weibel, D., Blaser, N. et al. Group recruitment in a thermophilic desert ant, Ocymyrmex robustior . J Comp Physiol A 199, 711–722 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-013-0830-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-013-0830-x

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