{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,2,27]],"date-time":"2026-02-27T01:35:11Z","timestamp":1772156111407,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":83,"publisher":"The Royal Society","issue":"2045","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,4,1]],"date-time":"2025-04-01T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1743465600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"},{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,4,1]],"date-time":"2025-04-01T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1743465600000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/100010663","name":"H2020 European Research Council","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100010663","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100000854","name":"Human Frontier Science Program","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100000854","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["royalsocietypublishing.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Proc. R. Soc. B."],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2025,4]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>\n                    Leaf-cutter ants cut fresh leaves to grow a symbiotic fungus as crop. During cutting, one mandible is typically anchored onto the leaf lamina while the other slices through it like a knife. When initiating cuts into the leaf edge, however, foragers sometimes deviate from this behaviour and instead use their mandibles symmetrically, akin to scissors.\n                    <jats:italic>In vivo<\/jats:italic>\n                    behavioural assays revealed that the preference for either of the two cutting strategies depended on leaf edge geometry and differed between natural leaf margins that were straight or serrated with notch-like folds: leaf-cutter ants displayed a strong preference for scissor-cutting when leaf edges were straight or had wide notches. This preference, however, reversed in favour of knife-cutting when notches were narrow. To investigate whether this behavioural difference had a mechanical origin, we mimicked knife-cutting in\n                    <jats:italic>ex vivo<\/jats:italic>\n                    cutting experiments: for wide notches, all but the sharpest mandibles failed to initiate cuts, or only did so at large forces, caused by substantial leaf buckling and bending. This increased force demand would substantially limit the ability of foragers to cut leaves, and so reduce the colony\u2019s access to food sources. Scissor-cutting may thus be an adaptation to the mechanical difficulties associated with bending and buckling of thin leaves.\n                  <\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1098\/rspb.2024.2926","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,4,22]],"date-time":"2025-04-22T19:05:52Z","timestamp":1745348752000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1098\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":2,"title":["Behavioural biomechanics: leaf-cutter ant cutting behaviour depends on leaf edge geometry"],"prefix":"10.1098","volume":"292","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-3917-0942","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Frederik","family":"P\u00fcffel","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Bioengineering, Imperial College London","place":["London, UK"]}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-0959-1364","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Victor","family":"Kang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Bioengineering, Imperial College London","place":["London, UK"]}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Mia","family":"Yap","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Bioengineering, Imperial College London","place":["London, UK"]}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Mohammad","family":"Shojaeifard","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of British Columbia","place":["Vancouver, Canada"]}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-8459-2036","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Mattia","family":"Bacca","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of British Columbia","place":["Vancouver, Canada"]}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-1952-8732","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"David","family":"Labonte","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Bioengineering, Imperial College London","place":["London, UK"]}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"175","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,4,23]]},"reference":[{"key":"e_1_3_7_2_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1098\/rspb.2017.2140"},{"key":"e_1_3_7_3_2","first-page":"3","volume-title":"Insects and ecosystem function","author":"Weisser W","year":"2004","unstructured":"Weisser W, Siemann E. 2004 The various effects of insects on ecosystem functioning. 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