System 001
Being the largest ants on Earth, army ants, such as African Dorylus queens have the greatest reproductive potential among the insects, with an egg-laying capacity of several millions per month. Army ant queens never have to leave the protection of the colony, where they mate with foreign incoming males which disperse on nuptial flights. The exact mating behavior of the army ant queen is still unknown, but observations seem to imply that queens may be fertilized by multiple males. When the queen ant dies, there is no replacement and army ants cannot rear emergency queens. Most of the time, if the queen dies, the colony will most likely die too.
Queen loss can occur due to accidents during emigrations, predator attack, old age or illness. When a colony loses its queen, the worker ants will usually fuse with another colony that has a queen in a few days. When the queens emerge, the workers in the colony will form two 'systems' or arms in opposite directions. These queens that are hatched will move down either the arms and only two queens will succeed, one for each branch. The remaining new queens will be left in the middle and are abandoned to die. Two new bivouacs will be formed and break off into different directions. The workers will surround the two to-be queens and ensure they reach the arms and survive.
These workers that surround the queens are affected by the CHC pheromone profile emitted from the new queen. When males hatch from their brood , they will fly off to find a mate.
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For males to access the queen and mate, they must run through the workers in the colony. Males that are favored are superficially similar in size and shape to the queen. The males also produce large quantities of pheromones to pacify the worker ants. In a colony , the queen is the primary individual responsible for reproduction in the colony. Analysis of genotypes have confirmed that workers are, on average, more closely related to the offspring of the queen than to that of other workers, and that workers rarely, if ever, reproduce. First, if the worker reproduces, it lowers the general performance of the colony because it is not working.
This suggests that if workers produced male offspring, they might be hatched out of sync with the queen's sexual brood and not likely to be successfully reared to adulthood. The whole colony of army ants can consume up to , prey animals each day, so can have a significant influence on the population , diversity, and behavior of their prey.
Underground species prey primarily on ground-dwelling arthropods and their larvae , earthworms , and occasionally also the young of vertebrates, turtle eggs, or oily seeds. A majority of the species, the "colony robbers", specialize in the offspring of other ants and wasps. Only a few species seem to have the very broad spectrum of prey seen in the raiding species. Even these species do not eat every kind of animal. Although small vertebrates that get caught in the raid will be killed, the jaws of the American Eciton are not suited to this type of prey, in contrast to the African Dorylus.
These undesired prey are simply left behind and consumed by scavengers or by the flies that accompany the ant swarm. Only a few species hunt primarily on the surface of the earth; they seek their prey mainly in leaf litter and in low vegetation. About five species hunt in higher trees, where they can attack birds and their eggs, although they focus on hunting other social insects along with their eggs and larvae. Colonies of army ants are large compared to the colonies of other Formicidae. Colonies can have over 15 million workers and can transport prey items per hour during the raid period.
The concentration of pheromone is highest in the middle of the trail, splitting the trail into two distinct regions: The outbound ants will occupy the outer two lanes and the returning ants will occupy the central lane. While foraging, army ants cause many invertebrates to flee from their hiding places under leaves of the forest floor, under tree bark, and other such locations, thereby allowing predators to catch them more easily.
For example, in the tropical rainforests of Panama, swarms of army ants attract many species of birds to this feast of scrambling insects, spiders, scorpions, worms, and other animals.
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Depending on the size of the ant swarm and the amount of prey the ants stir up, birds can number from a few to dozens of individuals. Birds that frequent army-ant swarms include the white-whiskered puffbird , rufous motmot , rufous-vented ground cuckoo , gray-necked wood rail , plain-brown woodcreeper , northern barred woodcreeper , cocoa woodcreeper , black-striped woodcreeper , fasciated antshrike , black-crowned antshrike , spotted antbird , bicolored antbird , ocellated antbird , chestnut-backed antbird , black-faced antthrush , and gray-headed tanager.
Army ants do not build a nest like most other ants. Instead, they build a living nest with their bodies, known as a bivouac.
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Bivouacs tend to be found in tree trunks or in burrows dug by the ants. The members of the bivouac hold onto each other's legs and so build a sort of ball, which may look unstructured to a layman's eyes, but is actually a well-organized structure. At the smallest disturbance, soldiers gather on the top surface of the bivouac, ready to defend the nest with powerful pincers and in the case of the Aenictinae and Ecitoninae stingers. The interior of the nest is filled with numerous passages and contains many chambers with food, the queen, the larvae, and the eggs.
Many species of army ant are widely considered to be keystone species , due to the large number of vertebrate and invertebrate associates that rely on army ant colonies for nutrition or protection. The Neotropical army ant Eciton burchellii has an estimated to animal associates, the most of any one species known to science. Historically, "army ant" in the broad sense referred to various members of five different ant subfamilies. In two of these cases, the Ponerinae and Myrmicinae , only a few species and genera exhibit legionary behavior; in the other three lineages, Ecitoninae , Dorylinae , and Leptanillinae , all of the constituent species are legionary.
More recently, ant classifications now recognize an additional New World subfamily, Leptanilloidinae , which also consists of obligate legionary species, so is another group now included among the army ants. A study of thirty species by Sean Brady of Cornell University indicates that army ants of subfamilies Ecitoninae South America , Dorylinae Africa and Aenictinae Asia together formed a monophyletic group, based on data from three molecular genes and one mitochondrial gene.
Brady concluded that these two groups are, therefore, a single lineage that evolved in the mid-Cretaceous period in Gondwana , [n 2] so the two subfamilies are now generally united into a single subfamily Ecitoninae , though this is still not universally recognized. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. For other uses, see Army Ants disambiguation. For other uses, see Marabunta disambiguation.
Parts of this article those related to the previous dorylomorph subfamilies Dorylinae, Aenictinae, Aenictogitoninae, Cerapachyinae, Ecitoninae and Leptanilloidinae , all of which now are synonyms of Dorylinae need to be updated. Please update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. Although most ant colonies live a settled existence in a fixed nest, there seems to be a successful living to be made by wandering in enormous pillaging armies.
This is called the legionary habit. The conventional view of the evolution of army ants needs a revision because of new data obtained by Sean Brady, a Cornell University, US, entomologist who has discovered that these ants evolved from a common ancestor. A Study in Social Organization. We feel that this letter is similar to a Treaty. But opposition to the dam was fruitless. Significantly, no lawyer was made available to the community to assist it in its deliberations.
The Native people themselves likely did not know of the existence of lawyers as professional advocates, and there is no indication that they ever requested one. The Chemawawin residents, who spoke little English and who had had little extensive contact with non-Native governmental structures, were left to their own devices. Not surprisingly, the little opposition to the project that did exist soon dissipated.
Paramount among the anticipated benefits was the construction of a new, fully modern town, with named streets, electricity, running water, bus service, and automobiles. In effect, the people came to believe that their new community would resemble the prosperous neighbouring towns they had occasionally visited.
The Letter of Intent clearly detailed many of these new benefits, including electricity, roads, a new school, and even cash. There are also disputes over the selection of the Easterville site itself, with the Manitoba government insisting that the people democratically selected the site from a short list of alternatives, and the people insisting that the Easterville site was the only one that was really offered to them as a location in which all of the promised services and facilities could actually be delivered.
How would the economy and the lifestyle of the Chemawawin people be maintained in the face of such devastation? The Letter of Intent notwithstanding, the Manitoba government proved reluctant or incapable, or both, of maintaining the people in their new site. Designed according to a southern urban model, the community was characterized by new houses lining named gravel streets.
The hub of the new community, located more or less at its physical centre, consisted of a new school, recreation hall, council office, co-op store and nursing station. But the site itself soon presented a different face to its new inhabitants. There was little actual ground cover or soil, and the location was dominated by gravel and rock outcrops that contrasted sharply with the natural beauty of the Chemawawin site. And the new site soon proved hazardous to health: The quality of the well water then became contaminated with human wastes.
Floating debris began to disrupt the activities of commercial fishermen, who had difficulty locating moving fish populations in the years immediately following the flooding of the lake. Beginning in , the commercial fishery was closed by the provincial government as a result of mercury contamination likely caused by the flooding of the lake. Trapping became increasingly unproductive, as the rising waters behind the dam flooded out beaver and muskrat habitat.
South Indian Lake and the Churchill River Diversion
Eventually most people gave up trapping altogether. Similarly, it became more difficult to hunt moose along the flooded shorelines of Cedar Lake. Social assistance payments increased accordingly. The promised road access to other communities, particularly Grand Rapids and The Pas, proved to be a mixed blessing, for while the people could travel to these centres to shop and for recreation, access to alcohol greatly increased, and social problems related to alcohol abuse and unemployment soon became prevalent in Easterville.
The spirit of the people of Chemawawin seemed to break once they were in Easterville. Granted, the new community looked modern, with its streetlights, gravel roads, new school, hall, and houses. But the image that infrastructural development gives is a misleading one. The promise of the Letter of Intent, fulfilled to a degree that is still a matter of debate, proved to be of little real value to the people. The extent to which the people of Chemawawin have recovered from the twin blows of relocation and hydro flooding is due, in large measure, to their own initiative and resilience.
In the s, the people of South Indian Lake were even more remote than those of Chemawawin, but this situation did not last for long. No sooner was the Grand Rapids dam completed than an announcement was made that the government wished now to turn its attention to the powerful Churchill and Nelson Rivers.
And just like the people of Chemawawin, the people of South Indian Lake were asked to relocate and reestablish themselves in the post-flood environment. The community of South Indian Lake strenuously fought the hydro project, and through a number of public hearings in it became evident that many southern Manitobans were also against it. From its early design phases, the diversion project was a fait accompli, and as for the Indians of South Indian Lake, the only question was how to get them to accept a compensation package and relocation. Although the majority of the residents of South Indian Lake were treaty Indians, theirs was not a reserve community.
However, this sincerity was of little consequence to the people, since the Manitoba government quickly terminated the funds it had available to the community for legal representation. The wishes of the local flood committee were ignored as Hydro officials began to approach individual residents with compensation deals. Post-impoundment shoreline along Southern Indian Lake, The people were consolidated on one shore of the lake, and new homes were provided by Manitoba Hydro and the government.
Electricity was eventually provided as well, including electric heat for the homes. A new town centre complex was constructed, including a store, school, and nursing station. A recreation hall was also provided. A gravel road was constructed to link all the new residential areas together.
Monetary compensation was provided in the areas of trapping and commercial fishing. Today, ferry service and a road provide residents with easy access to the nearby towns of Leaf Rapids and Lynn Lake. Indeed, it would appear that the community has greatly benefitted from the hydro project. The image of development engendered by the new structures and services shrouds the reality of a community negatively affected by hydro construction.
Compensation notwithstanding, the local economy has gone into a tailspin as a result of the flooding of Southern Indian Lake. The commercial fishing on the lake has been most seriously damaged, with not only declining catches but also declining quality.