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ARS Home » Southeast Area » Gainesville, Florida » Center for Medical, Agricultural and Veterinary Entomology » Imported Fire Ant and Household Insects Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #89860
Title: AN IMPROVED AND QUANTIFIED TECHNIQUE FOR MARKING INDIVIDUAL FIRE ANTS (HYMENOPTERA: FORMICIDAE)

Author
item Wojcik, Daniel
item BURGES, RICHARD - UNIV OF FLORIDA
item BLANTON, CHANTAL - UNIV OF FLORIDA
item Focks, Dana

Submitted to: Florida Entomologist
Publication Type: Research Notes
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/9/1999
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: Fire ants occur in parts of 11 southern states, and cause hundreds of millions of dollars of damage to domestic animals, wildlife, and the infrastructure (roads, electrical systems, equipment). Additionally, several deaths of humans occur each year. Understanding the biology and behavior of fire ants is critical to developing new management strategies. Researchers at the ARS Center for Medical, Agricultural and Veterinary Entomology in Gainesville, Fl, developed a simple system to mark individual ants with a small dot of special paint so that their foraging profiles and interactions with other nestmates could be studied and characterized. If the paint was still fresh when the ants were reintroduced into the colony, nestmates were less likely to try and remove it than if it was dry at the time of reintroduction. Consequently, in the absence of active grooming, marks lasted up to 119 days and did not appear to cause mortality. This technique will be useful in learning how fire ants interact with their nestmates and ants of other nests. This is expected to provide insight into how colonies function, and more importantly, how we may be able to disrupt critical interactions so that colonies do not survive.

Technical Abstract: Individual fire ants, Solenopsis invicta Buren were marked with dots of Markal brand Ball Point Paint Markers. The marked ants were returned to the colony while the paint was still wet. The marks were slowly lost over a 100-day period with one mark lasting 119 days. No mortality could be attributed to the paint. The proportion of ants retaining marks over time can be expressed as a simple exponential decay model: proportion with mark = 0.7665 * exp (-0.0175 * time in days). The technique will be useful in assessing basic behavioral characteristics, such as polygyne versus monogyne interactions, nestmate discrimination, foraging profiles, and in assessing impact of candidate biological control organisms on behavior and survivorship of fire ants.