Soil moisture and excavation behaviour in the Chaco leaf-cutting ant (Atta vollenweideri): digging performance and prevention of water inflow into the nest.

ABSTRACT: The Chaco leaf-cutting ant Atta vollenweideri is native to the clay-heavy soils of the Gran Chaco region in South America. Because of seasonal floods, colonies are regularly exposed to varying moisture across the soil profile, a factor that not only strongly influences workers' digging performance during nest building, but also determines the suitability of the soil for the rearing of the colony's symbiotic fungus. In this study, we investigated the effects of varying soil moisture on behaviours associated with underground nest building in A. vollenweideri. This was done in a series of laboratory experiments using standardised, plastic clay-water mixtures with gravimetric water contents ranging from relatively brittle material to mixtures close to the liquid limit. Our experiments showed t

SUBMITTER: Pielstrom S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3991694 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature