Wilcoxon signed rank test was used to see if protein or sugar level significantly affected
the difference between the average number of crazy ant and fire ant workers engaged in
fights.
Results
Crazy ants vs. minor and major fire ants
There was no effect of fire ant worker size category on overall average aggression
score (Fij22= l ∙20, p = 0.285). The average aggression score of containers with large fire
ants was 1.00 ± 0.11, and the average aggression score of dishes with small fire ants was
1.18 ≡ 0.11. Though these scores were low due to the number of ants ignoring the other
species (receiving a score of 0), nearly all of the non-zero interactions were scored with
3’s or 4’s, indicating a high level of aggression during encounters. Though there was no
effect of fire ant size category on average number of crazy ants fighting (F1,22 = 2.91, p =
0.102), there was a significant effect of fire ant size on the average number of fire ants
fighting (Fι,22 4.76, p = 0.040), with small fire ants having an average of 51.6% more
workers fighting than large fire ants fighting during a given observation period (Figure
2.1). Fire ant size category had no effect on either crazy ant mortality (Zι = 0.95, p =
0.329) or fire ant mortality (Zι = 1.72, p = 0.190) after 1 hour.
Comparing the response variables of the two species, there was a trend for crazy
ants to have a higher average number of workers engaged in fights (Z23 = 12.00, p =
0.063, Figiire 2.2), and crazy ants had higher mortality than fire ants after 1 hour (t9 =
2.4140, p = 0.039, Figure 2.3). Fire ant size did not have an effect on the difference
between crazy ants and fire ants for average number of ants fighting (zɪ = -1.23, p =
19