People have been farming for thousands of years. However, compared to some representatives of the fauna, we are newbies in this matter. After all, leaf-cutter ants have been doing the same thing for millions of years.
Hardworking insect farmers can be found across a vast area of Central and South America, from Mexico to Argentina. Moving along its beaten path, each ant carries a fragment of a leaf three times its own weight. As common sense dictates, insects should feed on these leaves. But no. They use the leaves of trees and shrubs to grow their own mushroom garden! To support their production, leaf-cutter ants have evolved complex societies that are now the oldest and most advanced on Earth.
What is the basic description
Leaf cutters are advanced ants. Of interest to scientists. The main characteristics, depending on the stage, are presented in the table.
| Larvae | The larvae are legless and eyeless. For full development, the representative needs a comfortable temperature and a specific level of humidity. Unfertilized eggs develop into males. Depending on the conditions, fertilized eggs produce queens or infertile females. In the absence of the opportunity to create new offspring, the representative will act as a worker and take care of the anthill. Mushrooms serve as food for the larvae. |
| Adult ants | Working ants with a body length of up to 20 mm. The size of the legs directly depends on the caste of the insect. A characteristic difference is the presence of a powerful hooked jaw. This is necessary for easy cutting of dense foliage. The ant has a large head. There is a well-developed sting. There is a special pocket on the bottom of the head. This is necessary in order to stock up on mycelium. The uterus has wings. However, they are nibbled off before the immediate formation of a colony by the most fertile female. |
Insects are divided into 7 castes. Among leaf cutters there are:
- uterus;
- males;
- soldiers;
- foragers;
- builders;
- gardeners;
- small workers.
The roles in the anthill are very carefully separated
Workers are responsible for caring for new offspring. Perform work in mushroom beds. The body does not grow more than 0.5 cm. Larger builders. The body length of some representatives can reach 2 cm. The head is powerful and large.
The largest uterus. The weight of the female is several times greater than that of ordinary working leaf cutters. There are powerful and large breasts. All ants of this species have 3 pairs of long limbs.
Description and appearance
This insect got its name for no reason at all because its diet consists of leaves. They feed on mushrooms, but it is the leaves that they cut and chew that act as the substrate for the mushrooms. Their nests are very large and have a large number of chambers and passages.
The insect has a brown body with a red tint. Some ants may have distinctive darkening on their limbs. Regarding size, in this case individuals differ from each other depending on their location in the group. For example, a worker ant does not grow more than 2 centimeters.
They have highly developed jaws and rather long limbs. Another feature of this species is the sting, which appears during the adult stage. The uterus is significantly different from all its relatives; it is large in size, and the color of the body is very dark. When adults are ready for the mating process, they grow wings.
Insects can have different lengths of legs; those goosebumps that constantly move through trees have the longest possible legs. All leaf cutters have a very developed jaw; they can easily gnaw through the tough and hard leaves of tropical trees. In addition to the fact that the jaws are quite strong, they are also large, which is why the insect’s head is not proportionally large. You can see what a leaf cutter looks like in the photo.
The life cycle consists of several stages of development. It is worth saying that the female can lay both fertilized and unfertilized eggs. If the eggs were not fertilized, then only males will have offspring. Regarding fertilized ones, the offspring are completely dependent on the conditions of development, nutrition and care. In this case, infertile female ants and queen ants may develop. The infertile ones subsequently serve as working insects.
At the development stage, the larvae look like worms that do not have limbs and a head. At this stage they are very vulnerable, they require favorable conditions for development, nutrition and care.
original name
To better understand the process of creating a new colony of ants, we need to go back to why leaf-cutter ants got their name. Observing these insects, people concluded that they feed on plants. This happened because the leafcutter ant, common in America, destroys plant leaves. If the colony gets down to business, then in a short period of time only branches and a trunk will remain from the tree. What do they do with the leaves? Are eating? This assumption turned out to be incorrect. Yes, indeed, leaf-cutter ants, the description of which you will find in this article, chew leaves, but not in order to eat.
Interaction with people[edit]
In some parts of their range, leaf-cutter ants can be serious agricultural pests, defoliating crops and damaging roads and farmland with their nest-building activities. [7] For example, some types of atta
capable of destroying an entire citrus tree in less than 24 hours.
A promising approach has been demonstrated to control the attack of the cutting ant Acromyrmex lobicornis
on crops. Collecting litter from the nest and placing it over seedlings or around crops had a deterrent effect for 30 days. [19]
Leaf musicians should inspect the leaves before playing music on them, in case there are leafcutter ants, leafhoppers, or on the leaves.
What do leaf cutters look like?
The leafcutter ant is a small, brown insect. The length of its body varies between 0.5-2 cm depending on which caste the individual belongs to. In total, leaf cutters have 7 castes: queen and males, soldiers and foragers, builders and gardeners, and small workers.
- Workers who care for future offspring and work in mushroom beds grow no more than 0.5 cm.
- Protector or soldier ants look much larger than workers; their body length is 1.5-2 cm. Their large head with powerful hooked jaws gives them a terrifying appearance, thanks to which the insects cut off the rough foliage of tropical plants. After all, leaf cutter ants live in Central and South America.
- The queen uterus deserves special attention, the mass of which is several hundred times greater than the weight of the working individual. Another distinctive feature of this female is her very large and powerful breasts. Before the mating process, the queen is a winged individual; after fertilization, she loses her wings, gnawing them off. From this moment on, she is only concerned with reproducing offspring and organizing a new family.
Leaf-cutter ants have three pairs of long legs, the size of which depends on the position they occupy. Individuals that frequently move through trees have the longest limbs.
Leaf cutter ant
Links[edit]
- Speight, Martin R.; Watt, Allan D.; Hunter, Mark D. (1999). Ecology of insects
. Blackwell Science. item 156. ISBN. 978-0-86542-745-7.. - ^ a b Ross 2002, pp. 11–13. harvnb error: no target: CITEREFRoss2002 (help)
- "The Leafcutter Ant" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on February 23, 2022.
- Schultz, T. R.; Brady, S. G. (2008). "Major evolutionary transitions in ant agriculture". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
.
105
(14):5435–5440. Bibcode: 2008PNAS..105.5435S. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0711024105. PMC 2291119. PMID 18362345. - ↑
Hedlund, Kai S. (March 2005). "Diagnoses of North Americans: Genera of Ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)". Archived from the original on August 24, 2007. - Li, Hongjie & Sun, Chang-yu (2020), "Biomineral armor in ant cutter leaf", Nature Communications
(11), DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-19566-3. - ^ ab Piper, Ross (2007), Uncommon Animals: An Encyclopedia of Curious and Unusual Animals, Greenwood Press, p. 298, ISBN 978-0-313-33922-6.
- ↑
Weber, Neil A. (1972), Gardener Ants, Attines, American Philosophical Society, pp. 14, 34, ISBN 978-0-87169-092-0. - Crop domestication is a balance
- Life on the farm isn't so easy for leafcutter ants.
- Hart, A.G. & Ratnieks, F.L.W. (2002), "Waste management in the leaf- cutter ant Atta colombica
",
Behavioral Ecology
,
13
(2): 224–231, doi:10.1093/beheco/13.2.224. - Bot, ANM; Currie, C.R.; Hart, A.G. & Boomsma, J.J. (2001), "Waste management by leaf cutters", Ethology Ecology and Evolution
,
13
(3): 225-237, doi:10.1080/08927014.2001.9522772. - Zhang, M.M.; Poulsen, M. & Currie, CR (2007), "Recognition of a symbiont of mutualistic bacteria in the Acromyrmex-leaf-cutter pathway", ISM Journal
,
1
(4): 313–320, doi:10.1038/ismej.2007.41, PMID 18043642. - "Leafcutter Ants", Lincoln Park Zoo
, archived from the original on 2008-05-16 - Curry, C.R.; Mueller, U.G. & Malloch, D. (1999), "Agricultural pathology of mushroom garden ants", PNAS
,
96
(14): 7998-8002, Bibcode: 1999PNAS...96.7998C, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.96.14. 7998, PMC 22176, PMID 10393936. - ↑
Reynolds, H. T. & Currie, C. R. (2004), "Pathogenicity of Escovopsis weberi: a parasite of the attine ant-microbe symbiosis directly consumes an ant-cultivated fungus",
Mycologia
,
96
(5): 955–959, doi: 10.2307/3762079, JSTOR 3762079. - Going, AC; Barkoto, Missouri; Kooij, P. W.; Bueno, O.C.; and Rodriguez, A. (2020), “How do leafcutter ants recognize antagonistic microbes in their fungal crops?”, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution
,
8
(95): 1–12, doi:10.3389/fevo.2020.00095. - Curry, C.R.; And Stewart, A.E. (2001), "Weeding and nurturing pathogens in ant farming", Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B
,
268
: 1033–1039, doi: 10.1098/rspb.2001.1605, PMC 1088705. - Ballari, S.A. and Farji-Brener, A.G. (2006), "Leaf-cutter ant dumps as a deterrent to herbivorous ants: does giving up age matter?", Netherlands Entomological Society
,
121
(3): 215–219, doi: 10.1111/j.1570-8703.2006.00475.x .
Lifestyle
The ant is a hard worker, this phrase also applies to leaf cutters. To feed their colony, ants need to put in a lot of effort. Having climbed the tree, the insect clasps the leaf plate with its limbs, after which it begins to cut off pieces of the leaf with its mandibles. Clutching the load with its mandibles, the ant heads back to the anthill.
The cut leaves are processed by a special caste of insects. As a result, carefully chewed coarse fiber produces leaf pulp, richly flavored with ant enzymes contained in saliva.
Interesting!
The saliva of leaf cutters contains an antibiotic, which promotes the growth of pathogenic microorganisms in mushroom beds.
The resulting mass is placed by insects in special chambers in which the necessary microclimate is maintained. The foliage mixture is infected with a special fungus and fertilized regularly.
After some time, the surface of the underground greenhouse is covered with mycelium, which looks like a sponge. At the initial stages of mushroom development, ants chew them off and throw them away. The resulting cut begins to actively secrete juice, which is a favorite delicacy of insects. Over time, these places harden and increase in area. They turn into a thick brush of transparent protein bodies, which is called “ant kohlrabi”. It is this fungal culture that serves as food for leaf cutter ants. For this reason, these insects are also called mushroom growers.
Description of the insect
Leaf-cutter ants received this name not because their food source is tree foliage. They use cut and chewed pieces of leaves as a nutrient substrate for mushrooms, which serve as their main food.
The nests built by leaf-cutter ants are quite impressive in size. Numerous passages and chambers can occupy several tens of cubic meters of soil.
Larvae
Leaf-cutter ant larvae are eyeless, legless, very vulnerable and completely helpless white “worms”. For proper development, they require constant care, a comfortable temperature and a certain air humidity. Unfertilized ant eggs subsequently become males.
From fertilized eggs, depending on care and food supply, female queens or infertile females develop. They will act as worker ants. Fungal hyphae serve as food for the larvae. The very first larvae are fed by the female herself. For these purposes, trophic eggs and new mycelium are used.
Adult
The appearance of a working adult is unremarkable. They have a small (5–20 mm) brown body. The size of the paws depends on the caste. In ants that often move through trees, the legs reach their maximum length. A characteristic external difference is the presence of powerful hooked jaws, with the help of which the ant deftly gnaws the rather tough foliage of tropical trees. Leaf cutters have razor-sharp jaws from birth and are called mandibles . It is thanks to the strong muscular jaw system that the head of the leaf-cutter ant has an impressive size.
The stalk located between the chest and abdomen has two segments: the petiolus and the postpetiolus, separated from the abdomen. The adult has a well-developed sting. The lower part of the head of the uterus is equipped with a special pocket that allows you to store a supply of mycelium. Each uterus is distinguished by powerful and very large breasts. The wings that the queen has before mating are chewed off by her herself immediately before the formation of a new colony.
Construction of an anthill for small mushroom growers
Although leaf-cutter ants are strictly attached to trees as sources of leaves, they build their anthills almost exclusively underground. It is quite simple to explain: only under a layer of soil are they protected from temperature changes, to which mushrooms are very sensitive, and from excessive exposure to moisture.
The anthill itself in vertical section looks like a huge egg. In the very center of it, farthest from any dangerous factors, there is a chamber with a uterus. It is surrounded by incubators in which eggs and larvae develop. All external chambers are farms in which the ants grow mushrooms. As some researchers note, the analogy with an egg here is not only figurative, but also functional - in its center is the main reproductive organ, and on the periphery are food reserves.
A colony of leaf-cutter ants can contain up to several million individuals, and the entire anthill can be several meters in size.
Some leaf cutters build piles similar to those created by our wood ants. But the heart of the anthill still remains underground.
This is interesting
Some types of leaf-cutter ants carry garbage out of the anthill, while others store it in special garbage chambers.
Besides humans, leaf-cutter ants have only one serious enemy - one species of nomadic ants, which practically does not run out to the surface, attacks leaf-cutter anthills and ruins them, eating the ants, their brood, and mushrooms.
Diet features
Their diet consists only of mushrooms; they are not able to digest other types of plant and animal food.
In order to have enough food for the entire colony, they have to grow the mushrooms themselves, which is a process consisting of the following stages:
- There is a separate working caste that first finds a suitable tree with leaves and cuts them. These individuals have the longest legs, so they can easily climb to the very tops of trees.
- The leaves are then passed on to another caste of porters. These individuals are very hardy and strong, they carry prey to their home.
- At the next stage, when the leaves are brought into the anthill, they need to be processed. To do this, another group chews them to a pulp, this is how healthy fats are extracted, and the consistency allows mushrooms to germinate.
- After this, the pulp is mixed with the colony's excrement and other nutritious fertilizers, which are obtained by the goosebumps and spread on the farm. The placement of the nutrient mush is very important in this procedure; they lay it out in the form of long thin threads, which makes it easy to move.
- And a separate caste looks after the harvest; they make sure that their mycelium grows correctly and does not go beyond the farm. In addition, mushrooms must be processed so that harmful bacteria do not appear, and they do this with the help of saliva, which contains a natural antibiotic.
The workers chew the food and distribute it among all adult insects; the remains are fed to the larvae. When the entire harvest is harvested, the mycelium is carefully removed and cleaned for a new harvest. The anthill has a separate chamber where all the garbage is taken out.
Own house
The building of a new family begins with the departure of the female. She does not fly away with empty paws, or rather, jaws. In her special pocket, she takes away a piece of mycelium so that, having settled in a new place, she can begin to arrange new plantings. Having found a suitable place, the female digs a passage underground. There she makes a hole in which she plants the mycelium. She lays eggs nearby. Initially, she takes care of the children and the “garden” herself. Moreover, the female feeds on her eggs and partially born young. Over time, the ants grow up and begin to monitor the mushrooms themselves. Then the uterus retires. There should be one queen in one anthill. If she dies, then the workers begin to look after the eggs.
Roles of ants
The leafcutter anthill is inhabited by seven different castes, performing 29 different functions. Characteristic is the noticeable difference in size between ant castes. Individuals that perform the functions of caring for eggs, the farm and the queen in the anthill itself have a body length of only 5–6 mm. The size of the soldiers is impressively huge. The length of their body exceeds the size of working ants by 3–4 times, and their mass by tens of times. The largest individual in an anthill is the queen. Its mass is almost 700 times the weight of the smallest members of the colony.
Not every ant house has soldier ants at its disposal. Only very powerful colonies can afford such luxury.
Activities to your liking
Interestingly, different individuals of ants perform different functions. Among them are those who take care of the queen, the house, and the farm. Others guard the anthill and extract leaves. Moreover, these insects even differ in size. The smallest ones are worker ants. The largest is the uterus. It weighs 700 times more than a small individual. But not every colony has soldiers. Only the largest and most powerful ones have security. Interesting insects are leaf-cutter ants. "What are they needed for?" - someone will be interested.
Reproduction
This process occurs in leaf cutters in the same way as in other species. The first stage occurs as follows. Working insects fatten the larvae; the food contains special substances that can stimulate sexual development. Before the mating process itself, female and male individuals grow wings. Then they leave the anthill and mating occurs. It is also worth mentioning that there is only 1 queen in the colony.
These goosebumps have a unique ability. In the case when the only queen dies, to preserve the colony, workers take on the function of laying eggs. In this option, absolutely full-fledged offspring may appear, or only male individuals who cannot produce offspring.
During the swarming process, the female mates not with one, but with several individuals. This is done so that a sufficient amount of seed can be collected. After this process, the males die, and the female lays eggs. The female lays her offspring in a hole, which she herself pulls out in advance. To feed the offspring, already prepared chewed leaves are placed in the same hole. The first offspring appears after 40-60 days.
Teleportation of Atta Ant Queens
Queens of this species have the unique ability to teleport. Scientists built a strong chamber for the queen and made a mark on the queen. The amazing thing is that the uterus can disappear from a closed chamber in a few minutes. It can be found in another chamber of the anthill. No one knows how she managed to escape from the very strong cell.
This phenomenon was described by a cryptozoologist named Ivan Sanderson. Most myrmecologists - ant specialists - cast great doubt on this theory.
Behavior
The food for leaf-cutter ants is a basidiomycete fungus. It is grown in special chambers that are located inside the anthill. The nests are built in such a way as to create optimal conditions for maintaining the necessary humidity and creating ventilation for growing the fungus.
Insects carry pieces of plants from everywhere, which, after chewing and fermentation, become a breeding ground for the fungus.
As the anthill grows, there is a clear division into groups of soldiers, workers and gatherers. From each group, individuals are identified that are engaged in specific operations.
Over time, castes are formed, the members of which can differ greatly from each other in appearance and purpose. Small foragers bring pieces of plants from nearby places, and large ones, on the contrary, from more distant places.
Having found a suitable plant, the insect uses its mandibles to separate it from unnecessary fragments and takes it to the nest. Often, worker ants ride on top of the pieces to drive away parasites. They also carry out work in internal chambers.
The nest and its population are protected by large and strong soldiers. Large working individuals crumble the brought greens, and small ones chew them into even smaller pieces and fertilize the mycelium with them. Very small worker ants prepare mushroom food for the queen and other ants.
Benefit or harm
Ant colonies can very densely populate the territory chosen for housing. To minimize the damage caused by leaf cutters, not only chemical protection products are used,
but also mechanical methods. A fairly effective method of combating leaf-cutting ants is the direct destruction of their nests. Metal or plastic fences, as well as the use of water barriers, showed the greatest effectiveness. The damage caused to garden crops is practically not felt in the rural areas. The activity of leaf cutters in wild natural conditions not only contributes to the enrichment of soil layers, but also accelerates all metabolic processes occurring in the ecosystem.
Large specimens of leaf cutters have long become food in some countries. Residents in South America collect this type of ant and eat it fried.
Difficult pests
At first glance, it seems that these insects cause only harm. Indeed, if there are too many of them, perhaps they will be able to eat the entire forest. That is, over time they will turn our planet into a desert. However, this does not happen. Apparently, nature itself maintains a certain balance. After all, leaf-cutter ants have natural enemies that prevent them from spreading too much. People also fight these insects, preventing them from approaching cultivated crops. To do this, their nests are destroyed using chemicals, and metal, plastic or water barriers are installed around the trees. Under natural conditions, the underground activity of leaf-cutter ants even contributes to the enrichment of soil layers and the acceleration of metabolic processes in the ecosystem. In addition, leaf-cutter ants themselves have become food for humans. Fried insects have long been eaten in South America and other countries.
Nowadays, we don’t have any kind of pets! For some people, these are leaf-cutter ants. Of course, they do not live in a garden plot, but in special insectariums in which special conditions have been created. These insects are interesting to watch, but still they must live in their natural habitat. If you are not planning to travel to South America anytime soon, you can see leaf-cutter ants at the Moscow Zoo.
How is labor distributed among leaf cutters?
Worker ants are the tiniest. The length is 0.5 cm. Such representatives are responsible for the growth and maturation of new offspring, as well as garden work. Soldiers are 3 or even 4 times larger. The main goal is to protect the anthill from strangers. They have a stronger jaw.
The queen is 700 times heavier than the workers. The thoracic region of the body is pronounced.
Not every anthill has soldiers. Guards live only in large nests, where there is an opportunity to feed the defenders. In smaller columns, all residents take on security functions to make up for the lack of an army.
What are the agricultural activities of insects
You might think that leaf cutters collect leaves for food. This opinion is wrong. Ants are unable to digest tough plant fibers. The collected leaves are chewed by a certain caste of insects. The resulting plant mass is stored in specially designated areas in the anthill, where favorable conditions are maintained.
A fungus begins to grow on the plant matter, which is food for insects. The ant does not eat the fruiting bodies of mushrooms. Only mycelium is required.
The ant bites off the fruiting bodies at the initial stage of their development. For insects, this is a waste of resources and does not provide any nutritional value. The leaf cutter's saliva contains a number of antibacterial substances that help destroy harmful microorganisms that pose a danger to the mycelium.
There are a huge number of types of leaf cutters
In total, there are about 200 species of ants in the world that grow mushrooms. Some are done on dead animals or feces. Leaf cutters use the most accessible and simple material. Leaf cutters are considered pests. In places where they live they can destroy all the foliage on trees and shrubs.
Your own vegetable garden
Their process of destroying foliage is very interesting. Some individuals trim the leaf from the cutting, then other ants approach it, specializing in gnawing out small pieces and dragging them into the house. Separate rooms of the anthill are reserved for growing mushrooms. And the leaves serve as a nutrient medium. To make mushrooms grow better, these insects use special fertilizers - their excrement, which they place on each leaf. But ants don't just eat mushrooms. They make sure they don't grow too big and trim them regularly. Then drops form at the site of the cut, which serve as food for them. The ants lick these drops, and their saliva, which contains large amounts of antibiotics, destroys harmful fungi and bacteria that can damage their mycelium. To ensure that the entire colony has enough food, these insects can grow about 100 mushrooms. Moreover, one weighs about 500 grams.
Ant fungus mutualism [edit]
Their societies are based on ant-fungus mutualism, and different species of ants use different species of fungi, but all the fungi that the ants use are members of the family Lepiotaceae. The ants actively cultivate their fungus, feeding it freshly cut plant material and protecting it from pests and mold. This mutualistic relationship is further enhanced by another symbiotic partner, a bacterium that grows on the ants and secretes chemicals; Essentially, ants use portable antimicrobials. Leaf-cutter ants are sensitive enough to adapt to how fungi react to different plant material, apparently by sensing chemical signals from the fungus. If a certain type of leaf is toxic to the fungus, the colony will no longer collect it. The only two other groups of insects that use fungi-based agriculture are ambrosia beetles and termites. The fungus grown by the adults is used to feed the ant larvae, and the adult ants feed on the sap of the leaves. The fungus needs ants to survive and the larvae need the fungus to survive, so mutualism is a must.
Fungi used by higher attine ants no longer produce spores. These ants fully domesticated their fungal partner 15 million years ago, a process that took 30 million years. [9] Their fungi produce nutritious and swollen hyphal tips (gongilidia) that grow in tufts called staphylae specifically for feeding the ants. [10]
Waste management[edit]
Workers Atta colombica
at work
Leafcutter ant in Costa Rica
Leaf-cutter ants play a very specific role in maintaining a mushroom garden and disposing of waste. Waste management is key to the longevity of every colony. Necrotrophic parasitic fungus Escovopsis
threatens the ants' food source and thus poses a constant danger to the ants.
Trash haulers and scavenger workers are the older, more indispensable leaf-cutter ants that provide the healthier, younger ants with the opportunity to work in the mushroom garden. Atta colombica
species, unusually for the Attine tribe, have an external waste pile.
Waste transporters transport the waste, consisting of used substrate and discarded fungus, to the waste pile. Once dumped into a landfill, workers collect the waste and continuously mix it to promote decomposition. A compelling observation of A. colombica
was dead ants placed around the perimeter of the landfill. [11] [12]
In addition to feeding the mushroom garden with forage food, mainly consisting of leaves, it is protected from Escovopsis
secretion of antibiotics by actinobacteria (genus
Pseudonocardia
). This mutualistic microorganism lives in the metapleural glands of the ant. [13] Actinobacteria are responsible for the production of most antibiotics in the world today.
Parasitism[edit]
When ants collect leaves, they are at risk of attack by certain species of phorid flies, parasitoids that lay eggs in crevices on the heads of worker ants. Often the minim will sit on the worker ant and repel any attack. [14]
Also, during cultivation, the wrong type of fungus may grow. Escovopsis
, a very
dangerous
fungus, can destroy an anthill as it is transmitted horizontally.
Escovopsis
was cultivated at colony founding in 6.6% of colonies.
[15] However, in colonies one to two years old, almost 60% had Escovopsis
growing in
the mushroom
garden. [16]
However, leafcutter ants have many adaptive mechanisms to recognize and combat Escovopsis
and other microorganisms. [17] The most common known behaviors rely on workers reducing the number of fungal spores by tending them or removing an infested area of a mushroom garden and disposing of it in a landfill (described as weeding). [18]
Females are more important
The leaf-cutter ant, whose lifestyle is certainly interesting, also reproduces in an original way. To raise insects capable of reproduction, special individuals fatten the larvae, adding special substances to their food that stimulate sexual development. The females and males that grow from these larvae mate with each other. Moreover, the female needs a large amount of sperm, so she mates with several males. After mating, which lasts only one day, the males die.
Ants are a source of life and protection for other creatures.
The species of bugs Acanthaspis petax is surprising in that its representatives, when feeding on ants, do not throw away their corpses, but construct a shield from them, which they carry on their backs. This shield protects against
attacks by spiders and other insects. If an attack does occur, the bug drops this shield and flees.
The unique behavior of the cordyceps mushroom is one-sided. If an ant inhales the spores of this fungus, it immediately turns into a zombie and follows to the place optimal for the development of the fungus. Usually this is a plant up to 20-30 cm tall. The ant climbs the plant and clings with its jaws to the central vein of the lower part of the leaf. After a couple of days, a stalked mushroom with hundreds of thousands of new spores grows from the back of the dead ant's head. Any new ants that accidentally pass through this area will be infected and killed in the same way.
Why are leafcutter ants dangerous?
Leaf-cutter ants: worker and soldier
This species does not have poison, so its bites do not pose a threat to the human body. However, the attack of this insect, especially from the fighting caste, is considered extremely painful. Because of its strong jaws, the ant can easily cut through human skin. An insect is never limited to one bite. There is a possibility of an allergic reaction.
Although mushroom ants have a strong influence on plant growth, they have distinct benefits. This insect helps enrich the soil and improve metabolic processes. Groups living close to people rarely cause serious nuisance. However, large colonies of leaf cutters can destroy even trees, not to mention garden plantings.
Methods to combat the mushroom ant
Leaf cutters are quite defenseless outside the anthill. They avoid migrations, because during such migrations there is a high risk of attack by other species of ants. Thus, if you destroy an anthill, the insects will die. However, you need to understand that getting rid of the uterus is not enough. In its absence, worker individuals will reproduce. Although this will reduce population growth, it will not be possible to completely get rid of a possible pest. Most often, the anthill is simply flooded with boiling water several times. At the same time, it is additionally destroyed with a shovel to increase the effectiveness of the method.
If there are large colonies nearby, chemicals are often used. However, they can cause harm not only to pests, but also to beneficial insects. In addition, incorrect dosage and non-compliance with the rules of application can lead to the death of plants. Chemicals can be dangerous to people and pets.
If the anthill is located outside the site, you can make sure that insects cannot penetrate beyond the established boundaries. For this purpose, special metal, plastic or water barriers are used.
Sources
- https://vrediteli24.ru/muravi/listorezy.html
- https://FB.ru/article/322613/muravey-listorez-podrobnoe-opisanie-foto-obraz-jizni
- https://apest.ru/muravi/vidy-muravev/muravi-listorezy/
- https://stopvreditel.ru/rastenij/lesov/muravi-listorezy.html
- https://KlopVred.ru/muravi/muravi-listorezy/
- https://kursi-floristiki.ru/muravi/listorezy-ispolzuyut-srezannye-listya-rastenij.html
- https://domvred.ru/muravi-listorezy/
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