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Trail pheromones are semiochemicals secreted from the body of an individual to affect the behavior of another individual receiving it. Trail pheromones often serve as a multi purpose chemical secretion that leads members of its own species towards a food source, while representing a territorial mark in the form of an allomone to organisms ...
Fire ants use track pheromones to mark the path from the colony to feeding sites. Trace pheromones are mainly known in insects living in colonies, which mark their paths with low-volatile substances such as higher molecular weight hydrocarbons. Ants in particular often mark the path from a food source to the nest in this way. [77]
Certain ants lay down an initial trail of pheromones as they return to the nest with food. This trail attracts other ants and serves as a guide. [21] As long as the food source remains available, visiting ants will continuously renew the pheromone trail. The pheromone requires continuous renewal because it evaporates quickly.
Pheromones can be used instead of insecticides in orchards. Pest insects are attracted by sex pheromones, allowing farmers to evaluate pest levels, and if need be to provide sufficient pheromone to disrupt mating. Chemical communication in insects is social signalling between insects of the same or different species, using chemicals.
Since most ants live on the ground, they use the soil surface to leave pheromone trails that may be followed by other ants. In species that forage in groups, a forager that finds food marks a trail on the way back to the colony; this trail is followed by other ants, these ants then reinforce the trail when they head back with food to the colony.
[1] [2] Branched-skeleton lactones and methylated isocoumarins produced in the hindgut function as trail pheromones, while straight-chain hydrocarbons and esters produced in the Dufour's glands act as alarm pheromones in C. saundersi and related species. [1] Jones, et al. (2004) identified the following chemicals within the secretion: Phenols
The returning worker ants have also been found to emit more pheromones than those leaving the nest, causing the difference in concentration of pheromone in the trails. [21] The pheromones will allow foraging to be much more efficient by allowing the army ants to avoid their own former paths and those of their conspecifics. [ 19 ]
Pharaoh ants utilize three types of pheromones. One is a long-lasting attractive chemical that is used to build a trail network. It remains detectable even if the ants do not use the trail for several days. Pharaoh ants cease activity at night and begin each day of work at around 8 am, yet parts of the trail network are identical each day. [11]