Nest ventilation in the leaf-cutting ant Atta vollenweideri is driven via a wind-induced mechanism. On their nests, workers construct small turrets that are expected to facilitate nest ventilation.

The interest in studying the respiratory responses of the workers to changing p0a derived from the consideration that, dwelling underground and forag- ing at the surface, leaf cutting ants may become exposed, in their wanderings to and from the nest, to conditions that probably range from normoxic in air, fTo whom all correspondence should be ...

In the present work, the easy access to leaf cutting ants of two species, Atta laevigata and Atta sexdens rubropilosa provided the chance of studying their res- piratory metabolism in relation to size, sex and casts, as the first step of a wider plan to investigate the physiology of these nocive insects.

Leafcutter ants are fungus-growing ants that share the behaviour of cutting leaves which they carry back to their nests to farm fungus. Next to humans, leafcutter ants form some of the largest and most complex animal societies on Earth.

This review updates and summarizes the current knowledge about the interaction of leaf-cutter ants and their parasitoids by providing comparable data for Acromyrmex and Atta ants. First, an overview of the relevant aspects of the biology and taxonomy of leaf cutters and of their parasitoids is provided.