Using nutritional geometry to define the fundamental macronutrient niche of the widespread invasive ant Monomorium pharaonis.

ABSTRACT: The emerging field of nutritional geometry (NG) provides powerful new approaches to test whether and how organisms prioritize specific nutritional blends when consuming chemically complex foods. NG approaches can thus help move beyond food-level estimates of diet breadth to predict invasive success, for instance by revealing narrow nutritional niches if broad diets are actually composed of nutritionally similar foods. We used two NG paradigms to provide different, but complementary insights into nutrient regulation strategies and test a hypothesis of extreme nutritional generalism in colony propagules of the globally distributed invasive ant Monomorium pharaonis. First, in two dimensions (protein:carbohydrates; P:C), M. pharaonis colonies consistently defended a slightly carbohydrate-biase

SUBMITTER: Krabbe BA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6586327 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature