Citation

van Wilgenburg E, Dang S, Forti AL, Koumoundouros TJ, Ly A, Elgar MA. Naturwissenschaften 2007; 94(9): 787-790.

Affiliation

Department of Zoology, The University of Melbourne, Victoria, 3010, Australia. ellenvw@gmail.com

Copyright

(Copyright © 2007, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s00114-007-0255-x

PMID

17458525

Abstract

The ability of social insects to discriminate against non-nestmates is vital for maintaining colony integrity, and in most social insect species, individuals act aggressively towards non-nestmates that intrude into their nest. Our experimental field data revealed that intra-colony aggression in the primitive bulldog ant Myrmecia nigriceps is negligible; our series of bioassays revealed no significant difference in the occurrence of aggression in trials involving workers from the same, a close (less than 300 m) or a far (more than 1.5 km) nest. Further, non-nestmate intruders were able to enter the nest in 60% of our trials; a similar level was observed in trials involving nestmates. These results suggest that workers of M. nigriceps are either unable to recognize alien conspecifics or that the costs of ignoring workers from foreign colonies are sufficiently low to favor low levels of inter-colony aggression in this species.

Language: en