Abstract

The timing of daily opening of the nest entrance by the red harvester ant Popnomyrmex californicus was studied during all four seasons. Multiple regression analysis of several , environmental variables shows that the variation from day to day in mean opening time can be attributed to temperature differences, with the time that a given temperature was reached being the most important single variable for the autumn days studied. An equation incorporating this and the minimum temperature was sufficient to specify the mean opening time to within a few minutes. For the spring days, it was necessary to combine sunrise time with the time a particular temperature was reached. Standard temperatures from a nearby weather station served essentially as well as those taken at the nests.

On the hottest nights in August over half the nests never closed at all, and on the coldest days in winter most of the nests stayed closed.

Artificial heating of nests after they had closed advanced opening time markedly although several hours passed before most openings occurred; over half opened before dawn. Also in a few cases, nests opened in the dark naturally. Thus light is not necessary for opening.

LLU Discipline

Biology

Department

Biology

School

Graduate School

First Advisor

Elwood S. McCluskey

Second Advisor

Raymond E. Ryckman

Third Advisor

Jan W. Kuzma

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Degree Level

M.A.

Year Degree Awarded

1968

Date (Title Page)

12-1968

Language

English

Library of Congress/MESH Subject Headings

Ants -- Behavior

Type

Thesis

Page Count

vii; 41

Digital Format

PDF

Digital Publisher

Loma Linda University Libraries

Usage Rights

This title appears here courtesy of the author, who has granted Loma Linda University a limited, non-exclusive right to make this publication available to the public. The author retains all other copyrights.

Collection

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Collection Website

http://scholarsrepository.llu.edu/etd/

Repository

Loma Linda University. Del E. Webb Memorial Library. University Archives

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