Injuries to Vegetation by Mound-Building Ants

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The claim that the mound-building ant, Formica exsectoides F., destroys young trees and herbaceous plants by biting the bark near the ground and then spraying formic acid on it is substantiated for a new region, near Baltimore. The ant gets neither food nor other direct gain from such attacks, but eventually some few of the plants attacked might grow up to shade the home mound and thus lessen the success of the community. But in the region studied there was found no evidence that the attacked trees bore any special reference to sun and shade. The attacks are part of general instinct to clear away regions about the mound and to attack many things that are encountered. Possibly the attack is of the nature of an aberration of instincts, from which, however, the community may profit in some cases. The injury to forests seems temporary and in natural stands not of such magnitude as to warrant efforts to exterminate this ant.

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: