trophophoresy
English edit
Etymology edit
tropho- + phoresy. Coined by John S. LaPolla in 2002.
Noun edit
trophophoresy (uncountable)
- (biology, entomology) A form of trophobiosis in which one creature carries another creature to another location to farm it (harvest food from it, often after feeding it) there.
- 2002 December, “Natural History of the Mealybug-Tending Ant, Acropyga epedana, with Descriptions of the Male and Queen Castes”, in Transactions of the American Entomological Society, volume 128, number 4, page 367:
- The mealybug-tending ant A. epedana is an obligate coccidiphile with trophophoretic queens. Trophophoresy is defined as the behavior of a foundress queen transporting a trophobiont on her mating flight for the establishment of a new mealybug "herd" in her new colony.
- 2007, M. J. Wade, “The co-evolutionary genetics of ecological communities”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), Nature Reviews Genetics:
- Acropyga spp. ants show obligate trophophoresy with mealybugs, in which newly mated queens carry a mealybug with them when founding new colonies.
- 2007, P. H. W. Biedermann, Social behaviour in sib mating fungus farmers:
- All insect fungus gardeners propagate their primary fungi as clonal monocultures within their nests and mostly across generations too (trophophoresy from parent to offspring in the ants and the beetles).