Herbivory of Leaf-Cutting Ants: A Case Study on Atta colombica in the Tropical Rainforest of Panama

By R. Wirth, H. Herz, R. Ryel, W. Beyschlag, B. Hölldobler. 2003

247 citations recorded by the source corpus.

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Citations in the corpus

Cutting More from Cut Forests: Edge Effects on Foraging and Herbivory of Leaf‐Cutting Ants in Brazil (2007, methodology): “Leaf-cutting ants (LCA) are dominant herbivores in the neotropics and play an important role in structuring forest communities (Wirth et al. 2003).”
Forage collection, substrate preparation, and diet composition in fungus‐growing ants (2010, background): “In general, leaf-cutting ants cut more fresh leaves in tropical rainy seasons (Howard, 1987; Wirth et al., 1997, 2003) and are more opportunistic in dry seasons when more than 50% of the collected material may consist of non-green plant material such as stipules, fruits, seeds, and flower parts…”
Spatio-temporal permanence and plasticity of foraging trails in young and mature leaf-cutting ant colonies (Atta spp.) (2005, methodology): “In some cases, this pattern remained stable for more than 1 y (M-2 and M-4; see also Wirth et al. 2003).”
Plant Herbivore Interactions at the Forest Edge (2008, background): “Summarizing, increases in light availability induced by herbivores may promote heterogeneity and micro-site diversity in a relatively homogeneous environment, like the interior of a continuous forest (Wirth et al. 2003).”
The arboreal ant community visiting extrafloral nectaries in the Neotropical cerrado savanna (2010, background): “Although the infl uence of leaf-cutting ants on species composition of plant communities has already been demonstrated (Wirth et al., 2003 ), the potential eff ect of nectar-feeding ants on plant communities is unknown.”
The Multiple Impacts of Leaf‐Cutting Ants and Their Novel Ecological Role in Human‐Modified Neotropical Forests (2014, background): “Seed manipulation by LCA includes carrying them to the subterranean nests and deposition on refuse dumps outside the nest, often after the fleshy fruit or arils have been removed or exhausted by the symbiotic fungus (Farji-Brener & Silva 1996, Wirth et al. 2003).”
Do herbivores exert top-down effects in Neotropical savannas? Estimates of biomass consumption by leaf-cutter ants (2008, background): “7 nests per ha reported in tropical forests (Cherrett 1989; Wirth et al. 2003; Herz et al. 2007).”
Increasing densities of leaf-cutting ants (Atta spp.) with proximity to the edge in a Brazilian Atlantic forest (2007, methodology): “…1983) has been most frequently invoked to explain high abundances of leaf-cutting ants in secondary forests (Farji-Brener 2001, Jaffe & Vilela 1989, Vasconcelos & Cherrett 1995) because the ants show a clear preference for early successional food plants (Farji-Brener 2001, Wirth et al. 2003).”