First, the invasion event took place a long time ago and, over time, the invading species has become a well-established and integrated community member. We anticipate that mutual recognition of pheromone trails is more likely for co-evolved ant species than for native and invasive species. pennsylvanicus and Formica subsericea that forage on the same aphid-infested trees but at different times of the day, and for workers of Ca. Temporal partitioning of activity schedules has been reported for workers of Ca. Indeed, aggressive encounters of ants with non-nest mates on shared (eavesdropped) trails are kept to a minimum, in part, by using dissimilar foraging schedules.
We use the term “eavesdropping” here to describe the behavior of ants gleaning trail pheromone information from community members but not to imply inevitably adverse effects for any community member involved. Pheromone trails leading to persistent food sources are generally well maintained by foragers and thus are readily exploited by (heterospecific) non-nestmates that learn about the location of profitable food sources through eavesdropping. Our data show that ant community members eavesdrop on each other’s trail pheromones, and that multiple pheromones can be combined in a lure that guides multiple species of pest ants to lethal food baits. modoc workers followed the 6-TPB and their own trail pheromones for similar distances, indicating no adverse effects of heterospecific pheromones on trail-following. niger workers followed the 6-TPB trail for longer distances than their own trail pheromone, indicating an additive effect of con- and hetero-specific pheromones on trail-following. niger, all species did not recognize the trail pheromones of N. rubra sensed the trail pheromones of all community members and unexpectedly that of T. In gas chromatographic-electroantennographic detection analyses of a six-species synthetic trail pheromone blend (6-TPB), La. We tested the hypotheses that ant community members (Western carpenter ants, Camponotus modoc black garden ants, Lasius niger European fire ants, Myrmica rubra) (1) sense, and follow, each other’s trail pheromones, and (2) fail to recognize trail pheromones of allopatric ants (pavement ants, Tetramorium caespitum desert harvester ants, Novomessor albisetosus Argentine ants, Linepithema humilis).
Ants deposit trail pheromones that guide nestmates to food sources.
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