ArticleInterface focus2024
Mandible elemental composition and mechanical properties from distinct castes of the leafcutter ant
Article in Interface focus, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed.
- Worker Body Size Drives Cuticle Thickness and Higher Relative Intensity of the Lipid Reaction in the Leaf-Cutting Ants Atta laevigata and Atta sexdens.Neotropical entomology · 2026Article
- Mandible composition and properties in two selected praying mantises (Insecta, Mantodea).Anatomical record (Hoboken, N.J. : 2007) · 2026Article
- Article
- Zinc accumulation in the jaw of Nereis aibuhitensis.The Journal of experimental biology · 2026Article
- Beyond morphology: Material alterations as inducible defenses inJournal of biosciences · 2026Article
- Evidence of cellular adaptations in a fungal cultivar promoting resource exchange with leafcutter ant farmers.Biology letters · 2025Article
- Morphology and material composition of raptorial foreleg cuticles in praying mantises Gongylus gongylodes and Sphodromantis lineola.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- The Right Tool for the Job: A Review of Insect Mouthparts as a Tool Kit for Biomimetic Studies.Biomimetics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- How do roses build failure-resistant anchoring tools?PNAS nexus · 2024Article
- Mandible elemental composition and mechanical properties from distinct castes of the leafcutter antInterface focus · 2024Article
- Hymenoptera and biomimetic surfaces: insights and innovations.Beilstein journal of nanotechnology · 2024Review
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Leafcutter ant colonies are divided into castes with the individuals performing different tasks, based mostly on size. With the mandibles, the small minims care for the brood or the fungus, whereas the larger minors and mediae cut and transport plant material, with the ant size positively related to the material size. The mechanical properties and composition of the mandible cuticle have been previously tested in the soldiers as the largest caste, revealing that the cutting edges contained high contents of the cross-linking transition metal zinc (Zn). With regard to the smaller castes, no data are present. To study how the mandible size and function relates to its mechanical properties, we here tested the mandibles of minims, minors and mediae by nanoindentation. We found that the hardness (H) and Young's modulus (E) values increased with increasing ant size and that the mandible cutting edges in each caste have the highest H- and E-values. To gain insight into the origins of these properties, we characterized the elemental composition by energy-dispersive X-ray analysis, revealing that minors and mediae possessed higher content of Zn in the cutting edges in contrast to the minims containing significantly less Zn. This shows, that Zn content relates to higher mechanical property values. Additionally, it shows that all of these parameters can differ within a single species.
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