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Who is the top dog in ant communities? Resources, parasitoids, and multiple competitive hierarchies

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Abstract

A wide variety of animal communities are organized into interspecific dominance hierarchies associated with the control and harvest of food resources. Interspecific dominance relationships are commonly found to be linear. However, dominance relations within communities can form a continuum ranging from intransitive networks to transitive, linear dominance hierarchies. How interference competition affects community structure depends on the configuration of the dominance interactions among the species. This study explores how resource size and the trait-mediated indirect effect (TMIE) specialist phorid fly parasitoids exert on interference competition, affect the transitive nature of competitive interactions in an assemblage of woodland ants. I quantify the linearity of networks of interactions associated with large and small food resources in the presence and absence of phorid parasitoids. Two distinct, significantly linear dominance hierarchies exist within the ant assemblage depending on the size of the disputed resource. However, the presence of phorid fly parasitoids eliminates the linearity of both dominance hierarchies. The host’s phorid defense behaviors reduce the competitive asymmetries between the host and its subdominant competitors, increasing the indeterminacy in the outcome of competitive interactions. Thus, both resource size variation and phorid-induced TMIEs appear to facilitate coexistence in assemblages of scavenging ants.

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Acknowledgements

This research benefited greatly from extensive discussions with D. Feener, E. Lyon, and J. Piasecke provided assistance in the field. F. Adler, P. Coley, D. Clayton, D. Holway, M. Lefebvre, E. Wilkinson, and two anonymous reviewers gave constructive criticism of the manuscript. B. Brown assisted in phorid identification and provided criticism on the manuscript. Stefan Cover identified ant species. K. Krejs’ support and patience were invaluable. The support of the American Museum of Natural History’s Southwestern Research Station and its staff greatly facilitated this research. A NSF Graduate Fellowship and a NSF Dissertation Improvement Grant to E.G. LeBrun funded this research.

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  1. Edward G. LeBrun

    Present address: Division of Biological Sciences, University of California San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA, 92093-0116, USA

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  1. Department of Biology, University of Utah, 257 South 1400 East, Salt Lake City, UT, 84112-0840, USA

    Edward G. LeBrun

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Correspondence to Edward G. LeBrun.

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LeBrun, E.G. Who is the top dog in ant communities? Resources, parasitoids, and multiple competitive hierarchies. Oecologia 142, 643–652 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-004-1763-4

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