Impact of the invasion of the imported fire ant

Abstract

The impact of the imported fire ant (IFA) is complex, in large part, because several very different species of "Fire Ants" have invaded and one of these has two forms, all of which are hard to separate by the public, as well as, some investigators not focused on the ant. Each of these different "IFA" species and forms differ in their impact. Further, these ants impact a number of "things" ranging from the environment and wildlife (plants and animals) as well as people, their environment and infrastructure. In addition, they can not only lead to death of living things (including people), but they can destroy many aspects of our environment and infrastructure at the cost of millions of dollars. But there are some beneficial aspects and some people can make many thousands of dollars due to their presence. This is an attempt to look at these issues.

Fatty Amines from Little Black Ants, Monomorium minimum, and Their Biological Activities Against Red Imported Fire Ants, Solenopsis invicta

“…They may become a menace to livestock (Sorensen and Trostle 1986) and wildlife (Allen et al 2004;Buhlmann and Coffman 2001;Cook 2003;Kopachena et al 2000;Langkilde and Freidenfelds 2010;Pedersen et al 2003). They also are important pests in agriculture (Vinson 1997(Vinson , 2013.…”

High invasive ant activity drives predation of a native butterfly larva

“…Their abundance and aggressive behavior often result in reduced diversity of native ants and other ground‐dwelling arthropods (Holway et al . , Vinson ). Carbohydrate‐rich resources, such as honeydew and floral and extrafloral nectar (EFN), attract ants onto plants and may mediate their activity and interspecific competitive ability (Grover et al .…”

“…Invasive ants often lack intraspecific aggression in their adopted range, which allows them to reach extraordinarily high densities (Krushelnycky et al 2010). Their abundance and aggressive behavior often result in reduced diversity of native ants and other ground-dwelling arthropods (Holway et al 2002, Vinson 2013. Carbohydrate-rich resources, such as honeydew and floral and extrafloral nectar (EFN), attract ants onto plants and may mediate their activity and interspecific competitive ability (Grover et al 2007;Savage & Whitney 2011).…”

The Guianese population of the fire ant Solenopsis saevissima is unicolonial

“…Accordingly, its success in its introduced range could be due to the negative impact of human disturbance on native ants rather than to its superior competitive ability (King & Tschinkel, ; but see LeBrun et al ., ; Stuble et al ., ). The negative and positive impacts of this species were recently presented (Epperson & Allen, ; Drees et al ., ; Rashid et al ., ; Vinson, ; see also Dejean et al ., for S. saevisima ).…”