33 replies to this topic

[UtahAnts]

I heard recently that local insect populations including those from Formicidae were declining, this was based on numbers attracted to black lights. This raised an interesting question in my mind that I have had since I first got into ant keeping. Do we as ant keepers inadvertently hurt some local populations that would have done better without our intervention?

 

According to Wikipedia "The young queens have an extremely high failure rate. During its lifetime a very large ant colony can send out millions of virgin queens. Assuming that the total number of ant colonies in the area remains constant, on average only one of these queens succeeds. The rest are destroyed by predators (most notably other ants), environmental hazards or failures in raising the first brood at various stages of the process. This strict selection ensures that the queen has to be both extremely fit and extremely lucky to pass on her genes to the next generation."

Another similar situation here (science.jrank.org): "In colonies with large populations, like that of the fire ant Solenopsis, hundreds of thousands of young queens take to the air in less than an hour, but only one or two individuals will survive long enough to reproduce. Most are taken by predators such as birds, frogs, beetles, centipedes, spiders, or by defensive workers of other ant colonies."

 

To an ant keeper, most of the ants he/she finds will be from a backlight or from the ground. This is fine as many queens are flying and rushing around already. But when a queen who has not only made it past the gauntlet of predators outlined above, including us, but also dug a nuptial chamber and possibly laid eggs gets taken by one of us, her species chances for allowing the species to live on decreases just a bit. But it adds up over time, over the years. 

 

So for instance assuming a species hypothetically has 100 queens fly and only 5 of them successfully mate and dig a chamber. Out of those maybe 2 might live to have nanitics and who knows whether they will find food to feed their starving queen. So chances are extremely low for any of the queens to start a successful colony. So all in all the survival rate is very low, getting lower still with invasive species that these ants don't have defensive/survival mechanisms for. And we, the ant keepers, catching queens in their chambers does not help things at all. 

 

Social insect colonies have survived for many millions of years, must longer then us humans. This is due in part to the genetic adaptation of kin selection where altruistic daughter workers give up their ability to reproduce and spread their genes in favor of combining all collected local resources and offering them to one or more individuals who have the ability to reproduce and make more sterile workers or more possible reproductives. This kin selection takes the place of natural selection for the individual, but the colony as a whole can be seen through the lens of natural selection. If the colony makes at least one successful daughter colony, the original colony has from a Darwinian perspective achieved what it was meant to do. All other sacrifices made by the workers and queen do not matter as long as another colony of the same species will take their place in the future.

 

To me, the practice of digging up queens that have already dug chambers for themselves could be seen as destroying the few queens that had a chance of starting their colonies. It does not matter if you take that queen and it makes a giant colony full alates, from an evolutionary standpoint, that queen and colony have failed due to no offspring being released successfully. Now of course allowing the reproductives to fly at their normal time due to environmental cues will allow this colony to reproduce and in fact help this species, by letting an unusual amount of alates fly.

 

One last point I want to make is that catching only native ants and not invasive species hurts the native species much more. When an invasive species encounters a native one, every colony, queen, worker and egg counts for that local group of colonies collective survival. Personally I see no problem with capturing invasive species as long as no members of the colony escape into the surrounding environment. As long as the colony does not reproduce, they have failed.

 

I know I probably sound like AC with "team invasive species and team natives" but I got to my conclusions separately. I do agree with him on this topic though, that native species need our help. Or at the very least they don't need us working against them by taking their populations, opening the way for invasive domination.

 

My point to all this was not to write an essay, which I ended up doing, but to point out that perhaps a conscious limit should be put in place when gathering queens, specifically digging up founding chambers and collecting any form of colony, especially mature ones.

 

Open to any other thoughts and opinions,

-thanks

Edited by AntsUtah, February 4 2021 - 6:40 PM.

[ANTdrew]

Amen, brother! I’ve been preaching this message for a long time now on this forum. If we as a community want to help ants, we should limit the number of queens we collect from nuptial flights and never, ever dig up successful queens or colonies. This is especially true for rare species! You hit the nail on the head here in a much more eloquent way than I could. Thank you.

[NickAnter]

Let's review some simple mathematics and logic!

 

Let's examine, for example, an ant such as Temnothorax. These are rather cryptic ants, and I believe it is safe to say, however many colonies you think there are, there are probably at least double in that area. If each colony released, say, 200 alates, and there are maybe 30 colonies in a 100x100ft space, there would then be 600 alates from that alone. Add this to the mixing of colonies from surrounding areas, and you would get a number well into the thousands. If the ever correct wikipedia is correct in this case, and based on personal observation, I am slightly doubtful this is true in a generic statement; there would be no successful colonies from this area. This is of course, not possible, as if it were, there would be no colonies to produce the alates. If we are seeing a few hundred ants on a blacklight, then that is only a tiny fraction of the total ants in the area(likely thousands in the air in the surrounding area). And consider this--there isn't an ankeeper every other house; we are few and far between. To truly make a dent in a population, you would have to collect thousands of dealates in a single area. Now, if every single person in a a city such as Salt Lake City, or Provo, collected 50 Temnothorax queens in a night, then you might have a problem. But the populations of any city do not collect large numbers of queens. Furthermore, if we take ants with larger colony sizes, such as Pogonomyrmex occidentalis, a mature colony could easily release a thousand alates. It's not unreasonable for there to be around a hundred mature colonies per acre, and so you would result in well over 100 thousand alates being released. Lets say that ten thousand are eaten by birds(that's stretching it, too), and another ten thousand are taken by antkeepers. Then, maybe sixty thousand get killed in other ways. You would then still have twenty thousand viable queens. And of course, there would be closer to thirty, as antkeepers aren't going to take ten thousand queens.

 

This is not to say I support digging up mature colonies--that, if done enough times, could put a small dent in an area where invasives have a strong presence. I personally do not dig up any colonies, but founding chambers, again, are generally in such large numbers that taking a few really isn't doing much.

Edited by NickAnter, February 4 2021 - 8:12 PM.

[UtahAnts]

That's a good point, the Wikipedia quote above was referencing queens who raised mature colonies, but even then Wikipedia was stretching it a bit I realize. Do you think with all the ant keepers in a well populated state like California looking after a very desirable species such as myrmecocystus, going as far (literally) to go into the local deserts and mountains to dig up queens, that year after year, the population will decline, similar to overfishing a body of water? Seemingly limitless amounts of queens, but over the years they get less in number while the demand grows more, until there is nothing left. This scenario, although it probably won't happen anytime in the near future was what I was trying to get at earlier. As the anting community grows, I feel like the inevitable outcome is that some species will decline at a rate, which will take years to grow back. Similar to the demand of ivory which lead to the near extinction of many elephant herds in sub-Saharan Africa, which are still on the verge of extinction all these years later.

[Swirlysnowflake]

Honestly, I don’t think there are enough ant keepers to do much damage. Not to say I don’t agree with you, it’s just that ant keeping isn’t a hobby most people are into

[UtahAnts]

True, but this past year, I have had tons of people interested in buying my ants for sell on the local market: ksl.com. Many of these people got their interest from AC (who has 4 million subscribers). So I feel like the anting community will have a large influx of new people in the coming year(s). If you looked at a graph of ant keepers over the years, it may just be me but the last 7 years or so have really been increasing exponentially. Especially the rising generation of younger people, more half of my customers this year were under 20.

[NickAnter]

Still a pretty small number. I mean, even Myrmecocystus release huge amounts of alates, and, even then, if each person say collected 10 queens of every species, it still isn't really that much.

[CheetoLord02]

Overcollection is hardly an issue in most parts of the world. It's absolutely improbable that a single antkeeper will be able to collect enough queens to seriously affect the population of ants in an area. To do so, the area would need to be thoroughly scoured by likely multiple people, grabbing every single queen, for EVERY nuptial flight that happens there. That is just not a likely scenario, even from the most extreme antkeepers.

Even if, theoretically, an antkeeper would cause the population of ants in an area to decline, it would likely be a temporary setback. As you yourself mentioned, other established colonies are the main predators of newly mated queens. So, if new colonies are not being formed, or in a lower rate, eventually the number of established colonies would go down. This would reduce the number of alates released, and likely discourage antkeepers from continuing to collect in that area, but also it would significantly reduce the number of natural predators in the area (other colonies). This would greatly boost the success rate of new queens, so while the number of queens released would go down, the pure number of successful queens would likely stay the same or possibly even increase, and the problem would eventually fix itself.

This also does not account for the fact that most colony failures are not necessarily in founding, but in the generations following, at least in some cases. Newly established colonies are far more vulnerable to attacks from other colonies or from failing to find food than a single queen locked in a claustral cell. Back in Illinois I would find dozens of C. pennsylvanicus queens in founding chambers after their flights, many of which would get their nanitics later in the year, but after the first winter and before the next year's flights, very very few would remain for one reason or another. If anything, less queens getting nanitics just means more resources available for the remaining queens, increasing the chances of them becoming established.

Unless a specific environmental condition is significantly altered that would make the environment less hospitable for ants (which is what we're seeing with increased agricultural land use, pollution, climate change, etc.), the population of ants is generally stable in a given area, even with antkeepers coming along and collecting queens or even established colonies. The issues we should be worried about are not overcollection, but rather the preservation of natural land that is suitable and hospitable for a wide variety of native ants.

[TennesseeAnts]

I agree with Cheeto, but all in gunna say is this:

Way I see it, the natural world will survive whatever we do to it. So if I am walking through the woods, flipping rocks and find a rare, desirable ant that I have looked for for years (take Stigmatomma trigonagnathum for example), you can bet that colony's coming home in my anting bag. Sure, enjoy the natives you have around you, but don't fret over something that will take hundreds of thousands, or even millions of years to happen.

[ANTdrew]

This is an excerpt from my book I'm currently writing on the art of ant-keeping:

Our planet is simply too small, and our remaining wild areas are too fragmented to sustainably harvest anything from the wild anymore. History has shown time and again how destructive the wild harvesting of plants and animals can be. Though it may seem like an easy way to get an ant colony, digging up a nest for your enjoyment is an unnecessary and destructive practice. This is especially true with rare species. 

Numerous studies have shown an alarming loss of insect diversity on a global scale. Insects around the world are facing various threats from habitat loss, climate change, invasive species, and pesticides. Ants are no exception. When you truly consider how few queens actually survive to found a successful colony, you will realize how special a mature colony is. If a person digs up such a colony, they have essentially removed one of the “all-stars” from the breeding pool. Even if the colony thrives in your care, it will no longer be able to easily share its successful genes for the benefit of the local population. It is more likely, though, that the colony will struggle to adapt to the strange new conditions of captivity. Most colonies removed this way tend to decline in health until they ultimately fail. There is also a high risk of injuring the queen during the digging process. 

There is a natural redundancy built in to every nuptial flight. Each colony lets out as many queens as they can in the hopes that just a few will survive. Responsibly collecting a few of these queens will have no more adverse effect on local populations than would collecting a few acorns or pine cones.  

Finding a new queen and starting from scratch will always be more rewarding than taking short cuts. You will observe the full life cycle from its most delicate beginnings and develop a deep bond with your queen. Your colony will have time to grow and adjust to your home conditions, resulting in better health overall and a more fulfilling experience. Please do not remove established colonies from the wild and help spread the word against this practice!

[UtahAnts]

I look back on my argument and I realize that from the many trillions of ants in the world we ant keepers can't really make a dent. I do think however while the numbers couldn't really change, the species that survive in this increasingly terraformed world, will. How would ant keeping change in 50 years if many of the local species in your area were driven out by a single super colony of Argentine ants, or a purge from Solenopsis invicta?  My main fear I was trying to voice here was not destroying populations single-handedly by capturing queens, but doing so in areas that are under siege by invasive ants. In these areas I like to tell myself, "what lives in the ground, stays in the ground".

[TennesseeAnts]

If the natives are going to be purged by S. invicta in as little a time frame as 50 years, we'd see a ton more decline than we already do. There are currently some natives that can outcompete S. invicta, and they're able to slow their spread somewhat. The ants down South will be fine most likely, but my worry would be S. invicta spreading North to ants that have no clue what to do with fire ants. At least the South already has/had S. xyloni and S. geminata, so our natives sorta know how to deal with fire ants. 

[Antkeeper01]

If the natives are going to be purged by S. invicta in as little a time frame as 50 years, we'd see a ton more decline than we already do. There are currently some natives that can outcompete S. invicta, and they're able to slow their spread somewhat. The ants down South will be fine most likely, but my worry would be S. invicta spreading North to ants that have no clue what to do with fire ants. At least the South already has/had S. xyloni and S. geminata, so our natives sorta know how to deal with fire ants. 

but here in Co not so much I'm thankful that co doesnt have rifa yet but we do T. immigrans

[TennesseeAnts]

 

If the natives are going to be purged by S. invicta in as little a time frame as 50 years, we'd see a ton more decline than we already do. There are currently some natives that can outcompete S. invicta, and they're able to slow their spread somewhat. The ants down South will be fine most likely, but my worry would be S. invicta spreading North to ants that have no clue what to do with fire ants. At least the South already has/had S. xyloni and S. geminata, so our natives sorta know how to deal with fire ants. 

but here in Co not so much I'm thankful that co doesnt have rifa yet but we do T. immigrans

 

Tetramorium immigrans really doesn't do a whole lot, tbh. They just further damage already weakened populations in cities. At least they can't really survive outside cities.

[Kaelwizard]

 

 

If the natives are going to be purged by S. invicta in as little a time frame as 50 years, we'd see a ton more decline than we already do. There are currently some natives that can outcompete S. invicta, and they're able to slow their spread somewhat. The ants down South will be fine most likely, but my worry would be S. invicta spreading North to ants that have no clue what to do with fire ants. At least the South already has/had S. xyloni and S. geminata, so our natives sorta know how to deal with fire ants. 

but here in Co not so much I'm thankful that co doesnt have rifa yet but we do T. immigrans

 

Tetramorium immigrans really doesn't do a whole lot, tbh. They just further damage already weakened populations in cities. At least they can't really survive outside cities.

 

Antkeeper01 just hates Tetras lol. I'm not sure why they hate them so much though.

[Antkeeper01]

here they is like RIFA you can catch loooooooooootttttttttttttsssssssssss of queens in a day and there are colonies evvvvvvveeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrryyyyyywwwwwwwwwhhhhhhhhhhhhheeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrreeee i would estimate around 10 colonies under my driveway and about 120 in the neighbor hood

[Manitobant]

here they is like RIFA you can catch loooooooooootttttttttttttsssssssssss of queens in a day and there are colonies evvvvvvveeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrryyyyyywwwwwwwwwhhhhhhhhhhhhheeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrreeee i would estimate around 10 colonies under my driveway and about 120 in the neighbor hood

RIFA aren’t in Colorado. You probably have something else.

[NickAnter]

I do believe he is referencing T. immigrans being as common there as RIFA are in the South.

[Antkeeper01]

ik but they are like RIFA in some ways for example, they wipe out all colonies within 10 feet except for some very lucky colonies, they grow fast, i'm really glad we don't have RIFA, they sound more like demons than ants.

[Canadian anter]

I think the first thing to note is that, to my knowledge, the killer of most queen ants is other mature colonies. Your point about how the number of ant colonies is not skyrocketing being indicative of the fragility of the queens is wholly different in that light. I could equally argue that once a space clears up, a colony fills it in very fast. The point is, the reason that the number of colonies that do not grow exponentially is because there are not enough resources to sustain them. Thus, it seems like colony foundation is way harder than it actually is (given a queen digs a hole in the ground, gets her first workers, etc), when in reality the only reason is because you have the mature colonies there in the first place.

 

(Correct me if I am wrong)

 

That said, I would very much discourage collecting wild colonies, since it takes so long for them to reach reproductive age in the wild.

 

On another note, I agree with the whole "collect as many invasives as possible" I doubt many would disagree, it's more so "keep invasives" which people probably dislike.

Invasive populations are sometimes so resilient it's hard to understand. In the past couple years, I have removed (and mostly euthanized) somewhere in the ballpark of 2000 Myrmica rubra queens (both from inside colonies and fresh flown queens) from just around 2 miles of forest near my house. Yes, this includes digging colonies out of logs and into freezers.

 

I still have little trouble finding them, and they still litter the sides of the trail with corpses, but recently I've seen large Camponotus colonies in the trail for the first time.