Dominant ant species significantly influence ecosystems
Ants and humans represent approximately the same amount of biomass on our planet. Together with other social insects, ants make up a third of the entire animal biomass in the tropics and hence have a major effect on their ecosystems. Researchers at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) investigated the role of different ant species in various ecosystem processes in tropical rain forests. They discovered that the dominant role is often played by only a few or even a single ant species when it comes to consuming food resources, something that can make an ecosystem vulnerable. Researchers working with Dr. Florian Menzel of the JGU Institute of Zoology have identified ant species in the forests of Borneo that are extremely efficient and exploit the major proportion of the food resources available. This is the first time that biologists quantified resource consumption by ants in the field and differentiated between diurnal and...