The Amazing Ant World

I have had a lifelong interest in ants and the extreme pleasure of working with them during graduate school. This page is a little introduction to the "little things that run the world."

Ants are everywhere! They often march into our kitchens, spoil our picnics or give people a reason to cringe. Consequently, ants are often looked down upon. Most people do not realize the majority of the 12,000 known species of ants are vital to most ecosystems, including the ones we live in. Ants play a number of important jobs that keep our environment healthy. Without them, the world would be a very different place.

Did you know?

* Ants enrich and turn more soil than earthworms.

* Disperse seeds of an estimated 30% of all herbaceous (non-woody) plants.

* Ants an important food source for many animals from woodpeckers to bears.

* Are the primary predators of other insects.
A single colony of ants can consume as many as 10 million insects per year. Less bugs to bug you!

* Ants make up 10% to 15% of the world's animal biomass!
If we could weigh all the humans in the world and weigh all the ants in the world – they would weigh roughly the same.

* Ants are a model organism for many scientific fields.
Ants are social insects that are excellent models for the study of cooperation and conflict in nature. By studying insect societies, researchers can better assess the various degrees of complexity of biological social systems. Ants have led to important advancements in the study of evolution, sociology and medicine. Even the Pentagon has studied army ant formations for war strategies.

* Ants (believe it or not) are also very beautiful and interesting to look at. Check out these websites.

www.antweb.org - A website put together by my advisor and uses a unique form of macrophotography called Automontage. This has helped revolutionize taxonomy and takes a series of photos (up to 30) under a microscope and uses software to pieces them together for a crystal clear image.

www.myrmecos.net/ - The most beautiful pictures of ants taken by fellow myrmecologist Alex Wilde.

My graduate research:

I looked at factors that influence ant biodiversity and abundance in urban parks, which is important but disappearing habitat for many species of ants. It is important to understand what is happening in these urban areas because in 2007, for the first time in human history, the amount of people living in urban (cities and their suburbs) areas surpassed 50% of the total world population. As more and more people move to urban environments, there is natural habitat for the plants and animals that lived their. More importantly, the small fragments of natural habitats that are left over are fundamentally changed.

I looked at these small urban fragments in San Francisco and documented over 15 of the 26 species of ants and discovered 3 species not known to this area. I found that ants in San Francisco are more abundant and diverse in grassland areas of these park vs. areas that are forested, which almost always had zero species of ants. This research can serve as a guide for city planners who wish to maintain areas for biodiversity. Because ants have an intertwined relationship with other plants and animals, it is important to preserve them.

Without Ants, We are Nothing....

Bert Holldobler, a famous biologist, sums up the importance of ants best,

“The very nature of our planet without ants would be very different than a world without humans. Without humans, culture, art, and music would vanish. But nature would recover,” he says. “Without ants, however, the Earth would lose one of its most integrated and useful life forms. The planet would be significantly altered. Many natural habitats would go extinct, including many of the plant and animal species living today.”

San Francisco Ant Key

If you have access to a microscope and would like to try and identify ants that live in the San Francisco Bay Area, I have attached a scientific ant key of San Francisco ants I created for public use.