Chemical and behavioural strategies along the spectrum of host specificity in ant-associated silverfish

Parmentier, T.; Gaju-Ricart, M.; Wenseleers, T.; Molero-Baltanás, R.

doi:10.1186/s40850-022-00118-9

BMC Zoology

Table 2 The behavioural repertoire shown by the silverfish during behavioural tests. Exemplary videos can be found in the corresponding Additional files

From: Chemical and behavioural strategies along the spectrum of host specificity in ant-associated silverfish

Silverfish behaviour	Description	Time considered	Exemplary videos
Frontal approach	Silverfish approached the ants which stood still, and an interaction (= in reach of the antennae) occurred.	4 min	Additional file 3 (video S1)
Avoidance	When an ant and/or silverfish are moving they may approach frontally. Avoidance occurred when the silverfish changed its direction to avoid interaction (situations when the ant approached to the back or the side of the silverfish were discarded).	4 min	Additional file 8 (video S6) Additional file 9 (video S7)
Backward approach	The silverfish approached to the back of the ant, or laterally but out of the reach of the ant antennae. The distance between the silverfish and the ant is smaller than the length of the antenna of the silverfish	4 min	Additional file 10 (video S8) Additional file 11 (video S9)
Stay at the back > 2 s	Similar to the “approach from the back” behaviour, but the silverfish stayed more than 2 s very close to the back of a resting or slowly moving ant.	4 min	Additional file 10 (video S8) Additional file 11 (video S9)
Host following > 2 s	The silverfish approached a worker and persecuted it during more than 2 s. The ant was walking more or less quickly.	15 min	Additional file 12 (video S10)
Allowed inspection > 2 s (yes/not)	The silverfish did not move quickly when antennated by a worker	15 min	Additional file 13 (video S11) Additional file 14 (video S12)
Pass over (yes / not)	The silverfish walked over or tried to climb over the worker, usually very quickly	15 min	Additional file 15 (video S13)
Pass under*	The silverfish passed under the body of the ant.	4 min	Additional file 16 (video S14)
Stay under > 2 s (yes / not)*	The silverfish stayed under the body of a resting or slowly moving ant during more than 2 s.	15 min	Additional file 17 (video S15)

When the behaviour was accounted for 4 min, the time intervals were always 3:00–5:00 min and 13:00–15:00 min of the video fragment. Yes/no behaviours were scored as 1 if the behaviour occurred at least once during the 15 min of the video and as 0 if it was not observed, Frontal approach, approach from the back, avoidance, host following, allow inspection, pass over and pass under behaviour were standardized by dividing the counts by the number of interactions (= ant antenna crosses body of silverfish) observed in the trial between 3 and 5 and 13–15 min (proxy for interaction rate, considering that a higher number of these behaviours can be observed when ants and silverfish interact more)
*These behaviours were only observed and accounted in assays with ants of medium or big size. Silverfish could not pass or stay under small ants

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ISSN: 2056-3132

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