Influência de fatores abióticos na atividade de forrageio de Cephalotes borgmeieri (Kempf, 1951)

Abstract

The search for food resources, i.e foraging activity is an extremely important task for the maintenance of ant colonies. During foraging, ants can be exposed to adverse environmental conditions, and because of this, they are able to adjust their foraging behavior to be more successful in the search for resources. Foraging behavior has already been studied in other ant species, however studies with the Cephalotini tribe are still scarce in the literature. Therefore, in this study, it was evaluated how Cephalotes borgmeieri (Kempf) foragers adjust their foraging activity to variations in abiotic factors. During the day, the foraging flow varies and is positively influenced by temperature and light, but negatively by relative humidity. During the foraging period we can observe four groups of foraging flow intensity: very low, low, medium, and high. And the foraging peak occurs at the hottest and least humid hours.