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Effect of the Argentine ant on the specialist myrmecophilous cricket Myrmecophilus kubotai in western Japan
Author(s) -
Takahashi Naoki,
Touyama Yoshifumi,
Kameyama Takeshi,
Ito Fuminori
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
entomological science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.536
H-Index - 28
eISSN - 1479-8298
pISSN - 1343-8786
DOI - 10.1111/ens.12314
Subject(s) - myrmecophily , cricket , ant , biology , argentine ant , ecology , zoology
Abstract Effects of the Argentine ant on myrmecophilous animals living inside ant nests have been rarely studied to date. We investigated whether the “specialist” myrmecophilous cricket Myrmecophilus kubotai Maruyama that lives only in colonies of a Japanese native ant, Tetramorium tsushimae Emery, could live with the Argentine ant. In the field, the cricket was never found in nests of the Argentine ant. Our experiments showed that the cricket could not survive in artifical nests of the Argentine ant under laboratory conditions.