OBJECTIVE To identify ants other than Solenopsis invicta and Solenopsis richteri reported to cause adverse reactions in humans. DATA SOURCES We conducted a literature review to identify reports of medical reactions to ants other than S. invicta and S. richteri. Our review of medical and entomological literature on stinging ants was generated from MEDLINE and FORMIS, respectively, using the ke...

Symbioses between plants and fungi, fungi and ants, and ants and plants all play important roles in ecosystems. Symbioses involving all three partners appear to be rare. Here, we describe a novel tripartite symbiosis in which ants and a fungus inhabit domatia of an ant-plant, and present evidence that such interactions are widespread. We investigated 139 individuals of the African ant-plant Leo...

Individually foraging ants are known to return to their nest by using path-integration and recording visual information present in the environment. The interaction between the path integrator and the information provided by the visual cues in an Australian desert ant are reported here. Ants were trained to travel in a 1-m wide and 20-m long corridor of cylinders. Homeward paths of trained ants ...

Estimation of distance travelled (odometry) forms a vital part of navigation for solitarily foraging ants. In this study we investigated the properties of odometric memory in the Australian desert ant Melophorus bagoti. Ants were trained to travel in linear channels to a feeder placed at 6 m or 12 m from the nest. We determined if the ability to estimate distances accurately increased with expe...

Insect societies face constant challenges from disease agents. Ants deploy diverse antimicrobial compounds against pathogens and the key sources are metapleural glands (MGs). Are MG products passively secreted and used indiscriminately or are they selectively used when ants are challenged by pathogens? In 26 species from five subfamilies, ants use foreleg movements to precisely groom the MG ope...

Invasive ants present a serious threat to humans, wildlife and sensitive environmental habitats. The nature of these sensitive sites such as schools, nursing homes, parks, and zoos prevent the widespread application of insecticides to control ants and encourage alternative strategies. The presence of endangered seabirds and the site’s proximity to the ocean prohibited conventional ant pest cont...

The symbiosis between fungus-farming ants (Attini, Formicidae), their cultivated fungi, garden-infecting Escovopsis pathogens, and Pseudonocardia bacteria on the ant integument has been popularized as an example of ant-Escovopsis-Pseudonocardia co-evolution. Recent research could not verify earlier conclusions regarding antibiotic-secreting, integumental Pseudonocardia that co-evolve to specifi...

It is well stablished that danger information can be transmitted by ants through relatively small distances , provoking either a state of alarm when they move away from potentially dangerous stimulus, or charge toward it aggressively. There is almost no knowledge if danger information can be transmitted along large distances. In this paper, we perturb leaf cutting ants of the species Atta insul...

This special feature results from the symposium 'Ants 2016: ant interactions with their biotic environments' held in Munich in May 2016 and deals with the interactions between ants and other insects, plants, microbes and fungi, studied at micro- and macroevolutionary levels with a wide range of approaches, from field ecology to next-generation sequencing, chemical ecology and molecular genetics...

Ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithms are population-based algorithms where ants communicate via their pheromone trails. Usually, this indirect communication leads the algorithm to a stagnation behaviour, where the ants follow the same path from early stages. This is because high levels of pheromone are generated into a single trail, where all the ants are influenced and follow it. As a resu...