school of ants

Why Study Ants?

~ shelli ~ 2 Comments

Note: This column was published in the Barrow Journal on Wednesday, July 31, 2013.

Last week I wrote about the School of Ants, a project that anyone can participate in. Scientists at North Carolina State University and the University of Florida are asking citizens to assist them in collecting ants, particularly those in urban areas.  You can learn all about it at www.schoolofants.org.

As I wrote that column, I dashed off an e-mail to the School of Ants team knowing that they might not get back to me before my deadline.  I was right about the deadline, but I wasn’t expecting to get such a great response this week.  Lauren told me that after considering my question, she found it important enough to write a response as a blog post on their website. I thought you might enjoy reading it too, so I’m sharing it with you today.

My question was “Why is it important to collect data on ants?”  Here’s what she wrote:

First of all, thank you for participating in the School of Ants!  I’m delighted that you and your son enjoyed the experience.  And thank you for your question.

The data that you and your son have helped us collect, along with hundreds of other citizen scientists, is giving us valuable data about the diversity and distribution of ants across the United States.

Ants are ubiquitous.  They are widespread and diverse, such that most people can easily pick out the ant when presented with a line-up of insect photos.  Yet despite how familiar ants are to us and how often we may encounter them in our daily lives (sometimes more often than we would like) we actually know relatively little about their diversity and distribution, particularly in urban areas.  The species we know the least about are the very same species that we interact with most frequently – those that are commonly found in backyards and on sidewalks, in street medians and on playgrounds.

Some of the species we are hoping to learn more about are exotic species – those that have been introduced from habitats outside of the United States.  Many of these exotic species are considered harmful to ecosystems and people, and are termed invasive species. While invasive species tend to be better studied once they have become established and caused havoc in an ecosystem, it’s hard to gather data about them in their earlier stages of introduction, before they have become widespread.

This is where School of Ants participants can save the day! In fact, just this past year, young participants helped us determine that the Asian needle ant (http://www.schoolofants.org/species/1157), a nasty invader well-known in the southeastern US, had expanded its range to Wisconsin and Washington State. Yikes!

We are also interested in the least studied of our native species, especially those that aren’t pests and are therefore often overlooked.  While some ants can be nuisances, many have beneficial roles in ecosystems.  By digging tunnels they turn over dirt and aerate the soil.  They can even help keep other pests at bay, including cockroaches, fleas and termites.  Yet so little is known about their role in urban ecosystems!  Some of the ant species crawling around on sidewalks in major cities haven’t even been named yet!

We’re harnessing the power of citizen scientists to collect data across a much wider range than we could possibly sample on our own (although what a road trip that would be!). We are learning a great deal about the diversity and distribution of ants.  We have already found cases of species living outside their previously described ranges.  For example, a native seed-harvesting ant (Aphaenogaster miamiana), believed to live only as far north as South Carolina, was found by a participant in the piedmont of North Carolina (http://www.schoolofants.org/species/2105).

Studying the diversity and distribution of ants is not only relevant today, but can also help us understand how climate change, land use, and urbanization might affect ants in the future.

So thank you, again, for participating in the project and contributing your data! Please let me know if you have any other questions!

Best,

Lauren and the School of Ants Team

The School of Ants

~ shelli ~ 8 Comments

Note: This column was published in the Barrow Journal on Wednesday, July 24, 2013.

This past school year, my son and I participated in the School of Ants project.  Any adult, child or classroom can participate in this fun, educational project, and by doing so, you can help scientists collect data on ants that live in urban areas.

When I told my six-year-old about the project, he couldn’t wait to do it. All we had to do was collect some ants in our yard and send them to North Carolina State University where the scientists identified the ants and labeled a U.S. map, which you can view on their website. If you live in Florida, you’ll send your specimens to Dr. Andrea Lucky’s lab at the University of Florida. She heads this whole project.

The School of Ants has already helped scientists identify an invasive Asian needle ant in samples from New York, Wisconsin and Washington.  Other rare species have been found too, such as the Bigfoot ant, which is North America’s rarest ant species. It had been discovered in the 1940s and never seen again until a North Carolina State University student found two of them under a rock outside his apartment. He took pictures of them and then released them, not knowing that they were so rare!

Though it’s easy to do the project, participants must make their own kit and pay for postage.  You’ll need 8 3×5 index cards, 1 pen, 2 Pecan Sandies cookies, 8 1-quart zip-lock bags, 1 1-gallon zip lock bag, and 1 envelope plus postage for submitting your kit.  You’ll also need to sacrifice some ants.

My son and I took four of the notecards and labeled them “green.” These had to go on a lawn, garden or forest about one foot apart. We left a quarter of a cookie on each card for one hour in the woods beside our house.

On the other four notecards, we wrote “paved.” These had to go on a paved surface for one hour, so we put those on our driveway.  After an hour, we were instructed to quickly dump the card, cookie and any ants we collected into a separate plastic bag.

The cards we left in the woods had plenty of ants on them, but the cards on the pavement only had a few tiny ants. They were just beginning to find the cookies.

We collected what we found and put all the baggies into one big gallon-size bag, and then put them into the freezer overnight. Supposedly, this is a humane way of killing the ants.

We had to fill out a small form, register our kit online and get a confirmation code, which we mailed with the ants.

When we did the project, I read that we would be e-mailed within a few weeks about our ants. We never received an e-mail, and it took several months, but we finally found our ants listed on the School of Ants website.  According to their site, we found three different species. The two in the woods were common ants, but the tiny ants in our driveway were not so common, so there’s not much known about them. Pretty cool, huh?

I asked my son if he’d like to try to find those ants again and observe them for a while. Perhaps we can make a small contribution to science. My son was excited about that, so maybe we’ll try it. That is, if we can find them again.

If you’d like to participate in the School of Ants project, go to www.schoolofants.org to get detailed instructions and additional information.

Come back on Thursday when I post a letter from the School of Ants answering my question, “Why is it important to study ants?”