干旱区生态环境知识资源中心

Ants of the species Messor arenarius and M. ebeninus are known as common granivores in the deserts of the Middle East and North Africa. The relationship between the spatial distribution of nests of these ant species and the distribution of vegetation was examined in the Negev highlands. Using the method of nearest neighbour analysis, it was found that nests of M. arenarius are evenly dispersed while the dispersion of nests of M. ebeninus does not differ from a random distribution. It is suggested that in desert surroundings there is a connection between the distribution pattern of nests of harvester ants and their foraging type. It seems that nests of individually foraging ants are usually evenly dispersed while nests of trunk-trail foraging ants are usually distributed in a random or aggregated dispersion. (C) 1997 Academic Press Limited.