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Blimp Project
Imported
fire ants reproduce sexually through mating flights, which occur
primarily in the spring and summer in Mississippi. During these
flights, the male alates (alate = winged reproductive) form a layer
in the atmosphere, somewhere between 300 feet to 1000 feet in
altitude. The female alates ascend to this height, mate with males,
and then descend to shed their wings and start new colonies.
Observing imported fire ant mating behavior is a great challenge
because of the difficulty of making observations at such a distance
from the ground. Scientists in the Insect Acoustics Laboratory have
been developing a system to make this type of research possible. We
are currently deploying a tethered 15 foot blimp mounted with a
video camera. The camera can be monitored and controlled from a
ground station. This device can be used to search for imported fire
ant reproductives during their mating flights. It can also being
fitted with cages containing male and female alates, which can be
used to attract alates of the opposite sex. Questions we would like
to answer with this device are:
1) Who does the attracting, males, females or both?
2) Does attraction require the presence of a live alate, suggesting
a behavioral mechanism, or is a dead alate sufficient, suggesting a
chemical attractant?
3) How are alates dispersed during mating flights, evenly or are
they swarming over certain landmarks or at a specific altitude?
Aside from answering these questions, we hope to export our
technology to other laboratories studying imported fire ants so that
it can further our understanding of their mating behavior which may
lead to better controls on imported fire ant populations. |
