MASS RECRUITMENT SYSTEM OF THE LEAF CUTTING ANT, ATTA-CEPHALOTES (L)

The recruitment system of Atta cephalotes workers was studied in the laboratory. The number of ants recruited to a food source depends on the quality of the food and on the duration of starvation of the colony, and is related to the concentration of trail pheromone on the trail but not to the number of ants initially returning to the nest from the food source. There is a relationship between the concentration of pheromone on the trail and the attractiveness of the food. A component of the trail pheromone, methyl 4-methylpyrrole-2-carboxylate, was found to elicit similar recruitment behaviour to a natural trail. Individual workers of A. cephalotes appear to modulate the number of ants recruited for food retrieval by varying the quantity of pheromone secreted from the poison sac during trail-laying. © 1979.