DUGi

Tolerància a la quinina de diverses espècies de formigues natives i invasores de l’àrea Mediterrània

http://dugi.udg.edu/item/http:@@@@hdl.handle.net@@10256@@28557

Invasive species are one of the most significant biological factors contributing to the loss of biodiversity, the displacement of native and endemic species, and the disruption of ecosystem functions in natural environments. In ants, control and/or eradication projects targeting invasive or pest species through the use of toxic baits can result in non-target species ingesting the toxic agent. Consequently, this reduces the effectiveness of the bait on the targeted species and causes unwanted negative impacts on insect communities within the treated habitat. In this study, we evaluated quinine bitterness tolerance of a group of both native and invasive ant species characteristic of the Mediterranean basin, expecting that invasive or pest-like ants would show a higher tolerance to quinine. This study aims to determine whether quinine could be used as a deterrent agent for non-target ant species in toxic baits used to control problematic species. Using the “Choice Test” method: which allows ants to make decisions by directly comparing two different baits (one with pure sucrose and the other with sucrose containing a concentration of quinine), we observed that most of the problematic species in our study exhibited a higher tolerance to quinine than other species that develop key functions in the ecosystem. Moreover, we found no relationship between quinine tolerance and the species invasive or pest traits, nor did we observe any link between social structure of unicolonial and multicolonial ants and quinine tolerance. Our results suggest a significant distinction in quinine tolerance between species that play a key role in ecosystem functioning and problematic species (invasive and pests), with the former showing aversion to this alkaloid compound. Finally, we propose that future control and/or eradication projects targeting invasive or pest ant species should consider using aversive agents such as quinine in toxic baits to minimize the impact on non-target species that may play crucial roles in the treated ecosystems

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