Distribution of the Two Social Forms of the Fire Ant Solenopsis invicta (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) in the Native South American Range (2024)

FAQs

What is the social structure of a fire ant? ›

After mating, the males die, and the new queens establish their own colonies. The social structure of fire ant colonies is highly organized, with the queen at the top, followed by the workers, and the males having a transient role.

Imported fire ants infest more than 367 million acres in Alabama, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Puerto Rico. APHIS has established quarantine areas where we know imported fire ant colonies exist.

The two distinct social forms of S. invicta are polygyny and monogyny (Glancey et al. 1973,1975). These two social forms differ in many aspects of behavior, physiology, and genetics (Krieger and Ross 2002, Fritz and Vander Meer 2003, Krieger 2004).

In the United States, imported fire ants currently inhabit all or parts of Alabama, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. They are discovered sporadically in Kentucky, Missouri, and Maryland.

Ants are considered social insects because they live in organized colonies and form complex societies. They are generally composed of three castes: the queen, the drones and the workers. Each caste has its own specific morphology and carries out specific tasks within the community.

Ants have separate castes, which are groups of ants that complete a certain duty. Ant castes are queens, workers and males. The queen ant lays eggs. Males die not long after they mate.

Distribution and diversity

Ants have a cosmopolitan distribution. They are found on all continents except Antarctica, and only a few large islands, such as Greenland, Iceland, parts of Polynesia and the Hawaiian Islands lack native ant species.

The red imported fire ant was imported around the 1930's and has spread to infest more than 260 million acres of land in nine southeastern states, including all or portions of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Texas and Oklahoma (Lofgren 1986, Sparks 1995).

Direct competition.

Imported fire ants have displaced, decimated or eliminated native Solenopsis fire ant species throughout much of the southern U.S. See video of S. invicta fighting S. geminata, a native fire ant species.

Many pest ants, including Argentine, odorous house ants (OHA), pharaoh, ghost, tawny crazy, and black crazy ants, are what entomologists refer to as “polygyne”, meaning there are multiple queens present in the same colony.

What is the Solenopsis invicta? ›

The Red Imported Fire Ant (Solenopsis invicta) is a native of tropical and subtropical South America that has achieved international notoriety by becoming an enormously successful invasive ant throughout much of the southern United States, being one of the 100 worst invasive species in the world (IUCN/SSC Invasive ...

The relationship between worker body size and the shape of their body parts was explored in the polymorphic ant, Solenopsis invicta. The data consisted of 20 measurements of body parts as well as sums of some of these measurements.

Red imported fire ants are dominant in altered areas and live in a wide variety of habitats. They can be found in rainforests, disturbed areas, deserts, grasslands, alongside roads and buildings, and in electrical equipment.

These ants can be carried for long distances as the vehicles move from place to place. Ants can also be moved with nursery stock or grass sod and in soil on soil-moving equipment. The spread of the RIFA is likely to be limited by dry conditions to the west and by cold temperatures to the north.

Ants occupy different microhabitats including the subsoil, soil, litter, trunks and canopy of different plant species, where they can act as defoliators, predators of arthropods and small vertebrates, and participate in mutualistic interactions with some plants and other animal species (^{Davidson et al., 2003}; ^fa*gundes ...

Ants are small insects that are found throughout the world. They are known for carrying objects much heavier and bigger than themselves. Ants are social insects. They live in organized communities, work cooperatively and efficiently, create a clear division of labor, wage war, and occasionally capture slaves.

The typical colony consists of one or more egg-laying queens, numerous sterile females (workers, soldiers) and, seasonally, many winged sexual males and females. In order to establish new colonies, ants undertake flights that occur at species-characteristic times of the day.

Like all insects, an ant's body is divided into three main parts: the head, the thorax, and the abdomen.  Ants have a hard, waterproof exoskeleton, which is made of a material called chitin. They are exceptionally strong for their size: they can lift 10 times their own weight! Most ants have two large compound eyes.