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Common house ants form supercolonies, prosper in urban settings
Date:3/30/2010

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - One of the most common house ant species might have been built for living in some of the smallest spaces in a forest, but the ants have found ways to take advantage of the comforts of city living.

Grzegorz Buczkowski, a Purdue University research assistant professor of entomology, found that odorous house ant colonies become larger and more complex as they move from forest to city and act somewhat like an invasive species. The ants live about 50 to a colony with one queen in forest settings but explode into supercolonies with more than 6 million workers and 50,000 queens in urban areas.

"This is a native species that's doing this," said Buczkowski, whose results are published in the early online version of the journal Biological Invasions. "Native ants are not supposed to become invasive. We don't know of any other native ants that are outcompeting other species of native ants like these."

Odorous house ants live in hollow acorn shells in the forest. They're called odorous because they have a coconut- or rum-like smell when crushed. They're considered one of the most common house ants.

In semi-natural areas that are a cross of forest and urban areas, such as a park, Buczkowski said he observed colonies of about 500 workers with a single queen. He said it's possible that as the ants get closer to urban areas they have easier access to food, shelter and other resources.

"In the forest, they have to compete for food and nesting sites," Buczkowski said. "In the cities, they don't have that competition. People give them a place to nest, a place to eat."

Buczkowski observed the ants in three different settings on and around the Purdue campus. He said it might be expected that if the odorous house ants were able to multiply into complex colonies, other ants would do the same.

But Buczkowski found no evidence that other ants had adapted to new environments and evolved into la
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Contact: Brian Wallheimer
bwallhei@purdue.edu
765-496-2050
Purdue University
Source:Eurekalert  

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