Non-native Florida ground ant species recruit workers from other nests. In this respect informs University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
“Earth ants are typically very small, only a few millimeters long, so walking on soil, leaves and other debris is like climbing hills,” said lead researcher Andrew Suarez. – Many of them are small special predators, for example, representatives of the genus Strumigeniespredators of small arthropods such as bowtails.” Basically, ground ants feed on garbage that accumulates under trees and other plants.
Scientists decided to check how ants of different species are ready to live in the same anthill with representatives of other nests. To do this, the authors collected more than 300 living ant colonies and placed them in artificial nests. By introducing individuals of the same species from different colonies to each other, the scientists assessed whether foreign workers were accepted.
It turns out that most non-native species adopt worker ants from different colonies, but most of the native inhabitants reject the aliens.
This “tolerance” gives non-native ants an advantage, Bucher says. By cooperating with ants from different nests, non-native ants “actually act as one unified colony over a large area.”
Currently, non-native ants make up 30% of the 177 terrestrial species that arrive in the state, mostly by commercial shipments.