Adjusting Foraging Effort to Resources in Adjacent Colonies of the Leaf- Cutter Ant, Atta colombica

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Abstract
Two adjacent colonies of leaf-cutter ants Atta colombica were studied to examine the influence of resource availability on foraging. A colony located in older, secondary forest used 130 different resource species and had a dietary diversity equal to 30.7 equally-used species. This colony showed a cyclical annual pattern of gradually changing diet on a Bray-Curtis ordination. An adjacent colony in younger, secondary forest used 103 plant species and had a dietary diversity of only 11.8 equally-utilized species. Foraging by this colony was governed by the availability of a small number of high quality resource species. Tree species eliciting a strong recruitment of foragers from the colony were denser in the younger forest suggesting that the colony in the younger forest was specializing in a richer resource environment. Regression analyses indicate that the location of small patches of high quality resources determines the spatial distribution of foraging in the younger forest but much less so in the older forest. A weak correlation between maximum harvest rates and the synchrony of leaf production may indicate that the phenology of leaf production serves as a predator-avoidance mechanism.

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