Ant Food Preferences

ANT FOOD PREFERENCES 2

Ant Food Preferences

Zhuoxin Xian

Bio lab 1625

Dr. JOHN R. TAYLOR

Sep. 24, 2020

Abstract

Utah has a wide variety of habitats, both in terrain and alternative types. It is completely located in the arid region of the United States but has high mountains separated by arid valleys and mesas. Cole, A. (1942). Because of the type of Utah， which make Utah have more biological species, such as ants. The goal of the experiment is to observed the food preferences of ant, which to avoid ant workers active in house, but no food preference was recorded about the ants from Cedar City.

Introduction

According to Allred, D. (1982), there are 169 species in 29 genera of ants from Utah. Because of the variety of ants, it would affect a lot of people’s life. Such as ants attracted by wasted food indoor, can also lead to ruined food and damaged property or result in a stinging bite. However, people have no ideas about food preferences of ant, which the only way to solve the ant problem is ask deworming company for help. (Baker et al. 1985; Krushelnycky & Reimer 1998) point out that Argentine ants preferred 25% sucrose. Although there are no Argentine ants in Utah, it still giving us an idea that ants might preference 25% sucrose.

Methods

Our group decide to do the experiment during sunset time because of the lower temperature and higher relative humidity during the sunset time, there were more ants foraged at night. Chong, K., & Lee, C. (2006). This experiment will be conducted in Cedar City. Choice tests were conducted using foods from bread, tuna, jelly and cheese, foods will be place by different distance from the ant hill. The first test will be place foods at the same location one by one to test the time of the first ant get on it, then we will choose the food which has the shortest time that the ant get on it for the rest of test. Observed the food preferences of ant will be depends on distance or food.

Predictions

If ant choose sucrose no matter what the distance is, then ant preference sucrose. If ant choose any food close to it, then ant preference anything but a short distance.

References

Allred, D. (1982). ANTS OF UTAH. The Great Basin Naturalist, 42(4), 415-511. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41711947

Baker, T., Key, S., & Gaston, L.K. (1985). Bait-preference Tests for the Argentine Ant (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Journal of Economic Entomology, 78, 1083-1088.

Cole, A. (1942). The Ants of Utah. The American Midland Naturalist, 28(2), 358-388. doi:10.2307/2420821

Chong, K., & Lee, C. (2006). Food preferences and foraging activity of field populations of a pest ant, Tapinoma indicum (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Sociobiology, 48, 875-883.