Data from: Disruption of foraging by a dominant invasive species to decrease its competitive ability ...

• Main Authors: Westermann, Fabian Ludwig, Suckling, David Maxwell, Lester, Philip John
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Dryad 2015
• Subjects: Technomyrmex jocosus; Monomorium antarcticum; behavioural interactions; Linepithema humile; ant; Aggression; Ochetellus glaber; Argentine; Antarc*
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.m64hs; https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.m64hs

Invasive species are a major threat to biodiversity when dominant within their newly established habitat. The globally distributed Argentine ant Linepithema humile has been reported to break the trade-off between interference and exploitative competition, achieve high population densities, and overpower nests of many endemic ant species. We have used the sensitivity of the Argentine ant to the synthetic trail pheromone (Z)-9-hexadecanal to investigate species interactions for the first time. We predicted that disrupting Argentine ant trail following behaviour would reduce their competitive ability and create an opportunity for three other resident species to increase their foraging success. Argentine ant success in the control was reduced with increasing pheromone concentration, as predicted, but interactions varied among competing resident species. These behavioural variations provide an explanation for observed differences in foraging success of the competing resident species and how much each of these ... : Ressource Competition ExperimentThe table "Resource Competition Experiment.csv" corresponds to the manuscript sections of the same name. It contains the number of food items taken by workers of each species during resource competition experiments between the invasive Argentine ant and three different competing species (the native Monomorium antarcticum, the introduced Ochetellus glaber and the introduced Technomyrmex jocosus) while treated with synthetic phermone. The experimental design is explained in the publication in the methods section with the same name as the datafile, further description of the datafile can be found in the ReadMe.txt.Resource Competition Experiment.csvBehavioural ScoringThe table "Behavioural Scoring.csv" corresponds to the manuscript sections of the same name. It contains he behaviour displayed by Argentine ant workers and one of the corresponding competing species (the native Monomorium antarcticum, the introduced Ochetellus glaber and the introduced Technomyrmex jocosus) during ...