COMPETITION FOR PREY BETWEEN ANTS 
AND BURYING BEETLES ( NICROPHORUS SPP): 
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN 
TEMPERATE SITES. 
By Michelle P. Scott, James F. A. Traniello, 
and Isabelle A. Fetherston 
Department of Biology, Boston University, 
Boston, Massachusetts 02215 
Introduction 
Burying beetles (Silphidae: Nicrophorus) utilize small vertebrate 
carcasses which can be quickly buried or rolled down a hole and 
concealed. Because carrion is also used by other invertebrates and 
vertebrates, burying beetles may be in competition with species of a 
wide variety of taxa for access to carcasses. For example, calli- 
phorid flies are often first to oviposit on carrion and if the eggs are 
not detected and destroyed by Nicrophorus the carcass may be con- 
sumed by developing fly larvae, causing the beetles to abandon the 
resource. 
One aspect of resource competition in Nicrophorus that has not 
been examined concerns interactions between burying beetles and 
ants (Arnett 1946). Ants are abundant, omnivorous scavengers in 
many habitats; ant colony size is often large and many species have 
swift recruitment systems that would allow them to occupy and 
defend small vertebrate prey. Ant species diversity and abundance 
are known to follow a latitudinal gradient (Kusnezov 1957, Wilson 
1971, Jeanne 1979), and therefore the predatory or scavenging hab- 
its of ants may exert different effects on the ability of northern and 
southern temperate Nicrophorus species to control small vertebrate 
carrion. In this paper we report on the results of a study examining 
competitive interactions between burying beetles and ants at north- 
ern and southern sites in North America. 
Materials and Methods 
The natural history of burying beetles ( Nicrophorus spp.) and 
their ecological relationships have been well described (Pukowski 
* Revised manuscript received by the editor September 10, 1987. 
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