首页 | 本学科首页   官方微博 | 高级检索  
     


Facultative Ant-Plant Interactions: Nectar Sugar Preferences of Introduced Pest Ant Species in South Florida1
Authors:Suzanne Koptur  Ni Truong
Abstract:We observed nectar use by native and exotic ant species in nature, garden, and urban situations, and found ants utilizing floral and extrafloral nectar of a variety of flowering plant species. We collected 31 plant nectars (29 floral, 2 extrafloral) and used them in feeding preference tests against standard solutions of sugars (20 percent fructose, glucose, and sucrose, and their mixture), 10 trials for each nectar-ant comparison. We compared time-to-discovery and total ant visits to each droplet using ANOVA, and found that both trial and solution contributed significantly to the variation in most experiments. Seven of the floral nectars tested were significantly more attractive to certain ant species than the sugar solutions. Not only do ants use floral nectar, but it appears that some floral nectars contain compounds that are especially attractive to ants.
Keywords:ants  feeding  Florida  nectar  preference
设为首页 | 免责声明 | 关于勤云 | 加入收藏

Copyright©北京勤云科技发展有限公司  京ICP备09084417号