Effect of supplemental foods on foraging behavior of forest ants in Connecticut

Granulated sucrose, ground-up dry cat food, or sucrose plus dry cat food were distributed weekly in forest plots during the spring and summer of 1995. Counts of ants, particularly Formica subsericea Say and F. neogagates Emery (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), seen in 5-min walks through each plot were similar in the plots receiving supplemental foods to those in control plots. However, numbers of ants coming to canned cat food baits were significantly higher in plots receiving sucrose than in the controls. Ants in sugar plots were probably searching for protein-rich foods to feed larvae. The implications these results have for using forest ants as control agents for the gypsy moth, Lymantria dispar L., and other forest pests are discussed