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Chemical Leaf Repellency To An Attine Ant: Seasonal Distribution Among Potential Host Plant Species, Jerome J. Howard

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

The chemical repellency of leaves to the leaf-cutting, fungus-growing ant Atta cephalotes was surveyed for 42 plant species randomly selected from the dry forest of Santa Rosa National Park, Guanacaste, Costa Rica. The sample represents about one-sixth of the potential host plant species available to the ants in the secondary, semideciduous forest at Santa Rosa. Repellencies of leaf extracts were measured by bioassay. A laboratory colony of A. cephalotes collected from Santa Rosa was used. Three-quarters of the species exhibited significantly repellent nonpolar (lipid-soluble) extractables (e.g., terpenoids, steroids, and waxes), and half of the species exhibited repellent polar extractables (e.g., …