Forest clearing and sex ratio in forest-dwelling wood ant <Emphasis Type="Italic">Formica aquilonia</Emphasis> |
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Authors: | Jouni Sorvari Harri Hakkarainen |
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Institution: | (1) Section of Ecology, Department of Biology, University of Turku, FI-20014 Turku, Finland;(2) Present address: School of Biological Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, Norfolk, NR4 7TJ, UK |
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Abstract: | Sex ratios of ants have been shown to vary with food resource levels in several studies, but it is not known whether forest
clear-cutting has any effect on sex ratio of aphid-tending forest-dwelling ants. We investigated whether the offspring sex
ratio of the forest dwelling ant Formica aquilonia varied as a response to clear-cutting. We found that the proportion of males was smaller in clear-cuts than in adjacent forests.
Our results are among the first showing that anthropogenic changes in forest structures may have a potential to modify sex
ratios of social insects and other forest-dwelling animals. |
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Keywords: | Effective population size Environmental sex allocation Forest fragmentation Formicidae Social insects |
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