The present study provides detailed data on the foraging strategy
of an ant that obligatorily exploits an unpredictable food
source. To harvest fast-decaying mushrooms E. procera established
a complex network of remarkably stable trails, which were used
only temporarily. Subsections of the trail network were abandoned
over longer time spans and later followed again with high trail fidelity,
leading us to reject our initial hypothesis of a fully flexible
trail system consisting only of temporary trails. This hypothesis was
based on the assumption that mushrooms represent a spatiotemporally
unpredictable food source. Our detailed, fine-scaled investigation
of mushroom growth patterns in a Malayan tropical
rainforest revealed, however, that mushroom growth was to some
degree predictable. Predictability of mushrooms in space and time
depended on the fungal species and on the timescale under
consideration. The presence of most mushrooms harvested by the
ants appeared unpredictable only when short time periods were
considered. Persisting for only a few days, they appeared to be
randomly distributed in space at any given point in time. Looking at
longer time periods, however, mushroom occurrence was to some
degree predictable because the same species frequently reappeared
in close proximity to its previous growth location within days or
weeks. Consequently, many mushroom species may be better
classified as a periodically regenerating resource with reasonable
spatial but low temporal predictability.
The present study provides detailed data on the foraging strategy
of an ant that obligatorily exploits an unpredictable food
source. To harvest fast-decaying mushrooms E. procera established
a complex network of remarkably stable trails, which were used
only temporarily. Subsections of the trail network were abandoned
over longer time spans and later followed again with high trail fidelity,
leading us to reject our initial hypothesis of a fully flexible
trail system consisting only of temporary trails. This hypothesis was
based on the assumption that mushrooms represent a spatiotemporally
unpredictable food source. Our detailed, fine-scaled investigation
of mushroom growth patterns in a Malayan tropical
rainforest revealed, however, that mushroom growth was to some
degree predictable. Predictability of mushrooms in space and time
depended on the fungal species and on the timescale under
consideration. The presence of most mushrooms harvested by the
ants appeared unpredictable only when short time periods were
considered. Persisting for only a few days, they appeared to be
randomly distributed in space at any given point in time. Looking at
longer time periods, however, mushroom occurrence was to some
degree predictable because the same species frequently reappeared
in close proximity to its previous growth location within days or
weeks. Consequently, many mushroom species may be better
classified as a periodically regenerating resource with reasonable
spatial but low temporal predictability.
การแปล กรุณารอสักครู่..