TY - JOUR
T1 - Manipulated ants
T2 - inducing loyalty to sugar feeders with an alkaloid
AU - Mogensen, Anders Lander
AU - Andersen, Laurits Bundgaard
AU - Sørensen, Jesper Givskov
AU - Offenberg, Joachim
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 The Authors. Pest Management Science published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry.
PY - 2024/7
Y1 - 2024/7
N2 - BACKGROUND: Wood ants are promising biocontrol agents in fruit plantations because they prey on pest insects and inhibit plant diseases. However, these ants also attend plant-feeding homopterans to harvest their honeydew secretions, thereby increasing their numbers. This problem can be solved by offering ants alternative sugar sources that are more attractive than honeydew. From natural interactions, it is known that some species manipulate mutualistic partners toward loyalty by adding alkaloids to the food they offer their mutualists. Inspired by this, the addition of alkaloids might be used to make ants loyal to artificial sugar feeders and thus used to reduce populations of ant-farmed homopterans in ant-mediated biological control. We aimed to explore whether wood ants (Formica polyctena) would develop a taste preference for morphine-containing sugar solutions in two-choice laboratory tests. RESULTS: After having fed on a morphine/sugar solution for 1 week, ants showed a significant preference for morphine solutions compared with equal concentration sugar solutions without morphine. Furthermore, ants lost this preference after 6–9 days on a morphine-free diet. CONCLUSION: The results show that wood ants react to morphine in their food, enabling chemical manipulation of their behavior, most likely through a taste preference. Thus, ants are susceptible to manipulation by mutualistic partners in natural interactions and furthermore may be manipulated artificially in biocontrol programs to avoid ant-mediated build-up of homopteran populations.
AB - BACKGROUND: Wood ants are promising biocontrol agents in fruit plantations because they prey on pest insects and inhibit plant diseases. However, these ants also attend plant-feeding homopterans to harvest their honeydew secretions, thereby increasing their numbers. This problem can be solved by offering ants alternative sugar sources that are more attractive than honeydew. From natural interactions, it is known that some species manipulate mutualistic partners toward loyalty by adding alkaloids to the food they offer their mutualists. Inspired by this, the addition of alkaloids might be used to make ants loyal to artificial sugar feeders and thus used to reduce populations of ant-farmed homopterans in ant-mediated biological control. We aimed to explore whether wood ants (Formica polyctena) would develop a taste preference for morphine-containing sugar solutions in two-choice laboratory tests. RESULTS: After having fed on a morphine/sugar solution for 1 week, ants showed a significant preference for morphine solutions compared with equal concentration sugar solutions without morphine. Furthermore, ants lost this preference after 6–9 days on a morphine-free diet. CONCLUSION: The results show that wood ants react to morphine in their food, enabling chemical manipulation of their behavior, most likely through a taste preference. Thus, ants are susceptible to manipulation by mutualistic partners in natural interactions and furthermore may be manipulated artificially in biocontrol programs to avoid ant-mediated build-up of homopteran populations.
KW - ant–aphid mutualism
KW - biological control
KW - chemical manipulation
KW - rapid learning
KW - taste preference
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85187189851
U2 - 10.1002/ps.8049
DO - 10.1002/ps.8049
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 38407544
AN - SCOPUS:85187189851
SN - 1526-498X
VL - 80
SP - 3445
EP - 3450
JO - Pest Management Science
JF - Pest Management Science
IS - 7
ER -