In the field at Welder Wildlife in South Texas
One of four greenhouse arenas at the Entomology Research
Laboratory
JIM
MARTIN
Doctoral Student
Department of Entomology
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX 77843-2475
(979) 845-8975
jimmart@acs.tamu.edu
My research is on the foraging behavior of the red imported fire
ant. Particularly, I am interested in the problem of how scout ants
orientate in time and space to areas within their home colony territory.
To help elucidate the processes that motivate scouting behavior, we have
constructed a number of greenhouse foraging arenas. Our first experiment,
now completed, was designed to seperate out how the history of resource use of a
colony affects scout searching intensity. We found that when
resources (protein and carbohydrates) were withheld for a period of 24 hours,
searching activity doubled in intensity. Future studies will look at site
fidelity of individuals and groups of scouts and how scouting behavior is
altered in the presence of conspecifics.
B.S. 1992 Zoology,
Southern Illinois University at Carbondale
M.S. 1996 Entomology, Texas
A&M University
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