On 11 Aug 2004 10:48:19 GMT, (Nick Maclaren) wrote:


In article ,
Stephen Howard writes:
|
| No, I'm not. We discussed this some time ago and I specifically asked
| if you had observed ant movement and behaviour at night. You said no,
| and admitted it was a fair point. It still is.
| I feel it's important to lay that caveat against any conclusions you
| may have drawn from your studies.

For heaven's sake! You clearly don't understand the investigations
that I performed. With one of the two, it would be relevant, were
the ants in my garden active at night (they aren't, at least not
much). With the other, IT IS COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT.

I'm sorry - when did you conduct this other investigation? I've not
seen a further post from you about this since your original one last
year. I must have missed it - please post a reference to it.

| While that is true, (a) the ants in the relevant location were all
| diurnal (from separate observation) and (b) it does not affect my
| investigations of patterns of infestation (checking on whether ants
| spread aphids).
|
| The former precludes the latter, surely.
| Ants are highly active at night - who knows what they might have been
| up to in the wee small hours?

That has PRECISELY NOTHING to do with the latter point. As I have
pointed out several times, my pattern of infestation investigations
are as relevant to whether ants are active during the day, at night
or only between 23 and 54 minutes past the hour.

And please do try to read before posting nonsense. AS I SAID, I
have investigated the nocturnal ant activity in my garden, and it
is minimal compared to the diurnal. BUT THE INVESTIGATION TO WHICH
THAT MIGHT BE RELEVANT IS NOT THE SAME ONE AS THE ABOVE.

How can it not be relevant?
Please take me through this slowly again...
The investigation was whether ants spread aphids, as in '(b)', yes?
In carrying out this investigation you made no nocturnal observations
( unless you've repeated the investigation since )?
If you draw any conclusions from these observations without
correlating ant behaviour, all you will have done is observed aphids -
yes?
From your observations you're convinced that any nocturnal activity by
the ants is insignificant in respect of the study?
Did your other studies make any discrimination between species?

I'm as interested in the subject as you apparently are - so there's no
need for you to feel defensive. Just say so if you're not prepared to
take questions from the floor.

To repeat: I performed MORE THAN ONE investigation, and they used
different methodologies.

Marvelous, I look forward to reading about the others. Pop it on a
fresh thread if needs be.

Regards,



--
Stephen Howard - Woodwind repairs & period restorations
www.shwoodwind.co.uk
Emails to: showard{whoisat}shwoodwind{dot}co{dot}uk