Natures wonders: ants feed larvae with a fluid (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, November 30, 2022, 18:34 (722 days ago) @ David Turell

Another ant colony production, fluid food for larvae:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2349378-ant-pupae-produce-a-nourishing-liquid-food...

A nutrient-rich liquid that could be produced by all ant species while the insects are in a pupae stage then gets consumed by both the adults and larvae.

In an accompanying editorial to the research, a team from Sorbonne Paris North University in France state that the production of this liquid had not been reported by scientists before.

Ants develop in several stages. An egg first becomes a worm-shaped larva, with no eyes or legs. Larvae then develop into pupae, which more closely resemble adult ants but have their legs and antennae folded in. Pupae eventually form adults.

Orli Snir at the Rockefeller University in New York isolated clonal raider ant (Ooceraea biroi) pupae from their colony. She found the pupae secreted a liquid about six days before they hatched.

Alongside her colleagues, led by Daniel Kronauer, Snir then found that if the liquid was allowed to build up around the pupae, it led to a fungal infection and pupal death.

When the researchers removed the liquid as it accumulated, the pupae grew as expected. This may mean that pupae rely on adults and larvae to remove the liquid somehow, says Kronauer.

Next, the researchers wanted to observe this phenomenon in a real-world setting to ensure that the liquid was not only secreted in a laboratory in response to something interfering with the pupae’s development.

To test this, they injected a food dye into the exuvial space of the pupae while they were in an ant colony. This space is a gap between the old cuticle of the pupae as the cuticle is molting and a new cuticle as it is forming. Within 24 hours, the larvae and adult ants also in the colony had taken up the dye into their digestive tracts.

This suggests that other researchers may have missed the liquid’s production because it is consumed relatively quickly.

Next, the researchers tested the effects that this liquid exposure had on larvae. When larvae were deprived of the liquid in an experimental setting, their growth was stunted and they had lower rates of survival. The liquid contains hormones and other substances that may aid larval development.

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According to Kronauer, the liquid may also ensure that an ant colony acts as a unit. “This secretion really creates these dependencies across different stages,” he says.

The pupae depend on the adults and larvae to remove the liquid so that they do not get an infection and the larvae rely on the pupae’s liquid to aid their growth, says Kronauer.

In a final stage of the experiment, the researchers isolated the pupae of four other ant species, finding that all these species’ pupae produced a similar fluid before hatching. “There are 15,000 ant species, so we can’t say for sure, but so far it seems that all ants produce this liquid,” says Kronauer.

“In short, these results are a fascinating example of how we can still discover new fundamental mechanisms if we just look,” says Chris Reid at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia.

“The fact that the authors show this newly discovered phenomenon is actually widespread among ants will lead to many researchers changing their way of thinking around the world.”

Comment: more amazing ant activity.