Trail Pheromone of the Chinese Pavement ant Tetramorium smithi

General Context
The Chinese pavement ant is a species native to China which prove capable of thriving in habitats largely stressed by human activities, such as inside mechanically-irrigated plant nurseries within large cities. More information on it can be found online at https://www.gbif.org/species/1323360
These tramp pavement ants have been recently proposed as a biological control agent against the red imported fire ant (RIFA) after displaying impressive resistance against attempted territory invasion by RIFA in plant nurseries in Guangdong, China. See published manuscript (free of charge): https://doi.org/10.1127/entomologia/3319
One of the main strategies employed by the pavement ants is sustaining intensive workers recruitment while foraging under pressure by RIFA invading and pillaging their territory. Therefore, their pheromone signalling system is worth of scrutinity. The present dataset looks into the chemistry of volatiles from this species, with special emphasis on their trail pheromone. It serves as the repository of raw data for a manuscript currently under review for publication [this will be edited once it gets published].

The present dataset includes main raw chromatograhy analysis files, from an Agilent system.
- Gas-chromatography coupled with mass-spectrometry (GC-MS) results of different body parts of the ants, ranging from whole-body down to a few dissected out organs.
- GC-MS chromatograms of chemical standards, including a standardized mixture of linear n-alkanes (C7-C40, all at 1 mg/mL) , and also the synthetic analogues: (i) perillene, (ii) 8-heptadecene, (iii) pentadecane, (iv) heptadecane.