Formica fusca

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Formica fusca
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Hymenoptera
Family: Formicidae
Subfamily: Formicinae
Genus: Formica
Species:
F. fusca
Binomial name
Formica fusca

Formica fusca is a black-colored

palaearctic region extends from Portugal in the west to Japan in the east and from Italy in the south to Fennoscandia in the north. Populations from North America have been split off as a separate species, Formica subaenescens.[2]
F. fusca nests are usually found in rotten tree stumps or under stones in clearcut areas and along woodland borders and hedgerows.

Eusociality

Colonies are facultatively polygynous (though weakly so, with a mean number of queen of 3.09[3]); though the queens coexist amicably, contribution to the brood tends to be unequal. Nests are usually small, containing 500–2,000 workers. The workers are large, at 8–10 millimetres (0.3–0.4 in) long, and fast moving, though timid. To ensure that non-nest mate eggs are not reared, these workers will engage in a process known as worker policing. Alate (winged) forms are produced in June/July and nuptial flights are in July/August.

A study has found evidence of nepotism in F. fusca,[4] in contrast with previous experiments with other ant species;[5] this conclusion has been challenged on the grounds that the observed pattern may result from differences in egg viability.[6]

Ecology

Formica fusca head

F. fusca feeds on small insects such as

extrafloral nectaries. Workers have been found to have a very high resistance to some pathogens[7] and it is thought this may be due to F. fusca utilising the antibiotic properties of their formic acid, additional to the use of their metapleural gland. The larvae of Microdon megalogaster, a member of the ant fly genus, have been observed in the nests of these ants. The inquiline relationship of these fly larvae is not well understood.[8][9]

Behaviour

mealybugs

Workers of this ant species can learn to associate an olfactory stimulus to a reward (sugar solution) during a classical conditioning protocol. Ants are fast to learn, and only a single presentation of the stimulus is enough for them to form a genuine long-term memory. This formed memory is also resistant to extinction.[10]

The learning abilities of this species were tested using single compounds found in flower emission.

MDA-MD-231
).

References

  1. ^ "Species: Formica fusca Linnaeus, 1758". AntWeb. California Academy of Sciences. 2018. Retrieved 1 February 2018.
  2. S2CID 51832848
    .
  3. S2CID 42946143
    .
  4. S2CID 4332432
    .
  5. S2CID 53144635
    .
  6. S2CID 5909680
    .
  7. S2CID 23234351
    .
  8. ^ Curran, Charles Howard (1925). "Contribution to a monograph of the American Syrphidae north of Mexico". The Kansas University Science Bulletin. 15: 7–216.
  9. ^ Heiss, Elizabeth Madeleine (1938). "A classification of the larvae and puparia of the Syrphidae of Illinois exclusive of aquatic forms". Series: Illinois Biological Monographs. 16: 1–142.
  10. ^
    PMID 31312508
    .
  11. PMID 35281730
    .

Further reading

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