2014 SRE Project

Prospects for the Continued Global Argentine Ant Supercolony

Mentors:
Dr. Matt Zefferman
Dr. Keenan Mack

Argentine ants are limited dispersers. In their native range, they form multi-queen supercolonies that are large, but constrained by competition with neighboring supercolonies. Recently one supercolony has been able to invade the Mediterranean climates of North America, Australia and the actual Mediterranean. Members of this giant supercolony do not fight each other. However, this large-scale cooperation should break down over time, decreasing the invasion success of this species. Our project will develop an agent-based model to explore how, where and over what timeframe this might this happen.

Student participants, from left: John Marken, Mathematics, College of William & Mary; Brian Whyte, Ecology, SUNY Plattsurgh; Nicole Rooks, Mathematics, UT Chattanooga

Products

Abstract of project report (PDF)

Return to SRE 2014.

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From 2008 until early 2021, NIMBioS was supported by the National Science Foundation through NSF Award #DBI-1300426, with additional support from The University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.