Study finds 'friend or foe' ant scents

BERKELEY, Calif., Oct. 27 (UPI) -- U.S. biologists say they have isolated scent molecules from Argentine ants, providing the first insights into ant colony mate recognition cues.

Researchers from the University of California at Irvine and Berkeley said they identified and synthesized the scents, describing how applying them to worker ants resulted in attacks from their former colony mates.

"Chemical signaling is the most ancient mode of communication, and it is still used in some form by all organisms," Associate Professor Neil Tsutsui of UC-Berkeley, who led the study, said. "The elaborate social systems of ants are largely regulated by chemical signals, but very little is known about the chemical labels that define colony membership."

Tsutsui said the fact that application of the chemicals made formerly friendly animals flare their mandibles, recoil, bite, grab and use chemical defenses suggests the study has provided some of the first insights into the identity of ant colony mate recognition cues.

"Future studies will be able to apply these findings to exploration of social evolution, sensory ecology, neurophysiology and invasion biology," Tsutsui added.

The study is reported in the journal BMC Biology.