How Ant Survive In This Planet – The Science Fact

Influence on soil and vegetation

The mighty wood ants' nests with their nest domes built from plant parts and the chamber system reaching deep into the ground have a decisive influence on the ecology of the forest floor. In the spruce stand, they reduce the litter layer by inserting the needles and thus reduce the formation of humic acid. Despite formic acid, the soil becomes more alkaline near the nest, to the advantage of the forest trees.

At the nest itself the soil is loosened, aerated, and mixed, crumb structure and water capacity improve, optimal conditions for humus decomposing bacteria, horn mites, springtails, threadworms, and earthworms are created. This positive influence on the soil continues to have a long-lasting effect even when the ant nests are abandoned. Seedlings benefit not only from the better soil conditions but also from the ants' hunting activities - natural regeneration is clearly promoted.

In the open countryside, other species become soil-biologically important through their nest-building because of the rearrangement, mixing, and aeration of soil material. The yellow meadow ant Lassies flatus is a particularly efficient earth carrier. Up to 7 tons of earth mass per hectare and year are transported to the ground surface. The preference of the ants to nest under stones causes the nest stones themselves to sink into the ground due to the constant mining work and earth material is brought to the surface. If your interested read in Hindi then read a fact about ant in Hindi

An ecologically stable forest needs a high animal diversity, which in turn requires corresponding plant diversity. Ants provide the basis for this because they play an essential role in the distribution of plants. In Europe, there are more than 130 plant species whose seeds are adapted to be spread by ants. Among them are for example snowdrop, larkspur, lungwort, celandine, and widow's flower.

They are preferably early bloomers in forests and woods. This is due to the fact that in such locations, wind, water, or slinging mechanisms are not very effective and the food supply for ants in the early year is still limited. Ants do not spread the seeds altruistically. The seeds of these ant plants have an appendage, the "oil body" (elaiosomes), which is rich in substances and an attractive food source. Ants carry the seeds into the nest where good germination conditions prevail or lose them on their way. The distribution distances range from 10 cm to over 70 m.

Enemies outside the nest

Like all living beings also ants have the most different enemies, whereby the range reaches from microorganisms up to birds and mammals. The actual biggest threat for ants is however ants themselves (see chapter "Attack and defense").

Among the small creatures, ants have hardly any enemies due to their defensive capabilities. Apart from the ant lion (Myrmeleon formicaries), there are specialized but quantitatively insignificant enemies in some spiders (Achaearanea Riparia, Calicle- pies spp, b, Dipnoan trusties, Sudation sop.) and digger wasps (Tracheliodes spp.).

Ants are confronted with parasites (fungi, nematodes, mites, parasitic flies, and wasps) in different ways; the transition to "subtenants" is fluid. One more question maybe runs into your mind. Do ants sleep in her life? Then read do ants sleep

Although ants are part of the diet of lizards, amphibians, and small mammals, they enjoy a great variety of foods due to their disproportion of taste and nutritional value.

Certain protection. More importantly, birds are here, which the nourishing sex-animals swarming to the wedding flight catch. At the nest itself, it is green- woodpecker, gray- woodpecker, and wryneck that live almost fully from ants (up to 1.000/day) constantly. Particularly affected here are forest ants, which are also on the menu of growing grouse. With the Auerhuhn, the forest-ant-food is supposed to be even indispensable for the normal development of the boys.

The direct readjustment is less problematic for forest ants than the impairment of the nest architecture, whereby frost and water penetrate and disturb the heat balance sensitively. Woodpeckers trek deep, arm-thick corridors into the nest dome in winter in search of ants. Badgers, foxes, and especially wild boar rummage through the piles in search of the rose chafer (Potosi cupric).

These impairments by natural beneficiaries, who need forest ants or their fellow inhabitants as a basis for their diet, are mostly tolerated by healthy ant colonies and should not lead to the exclusion of forest ants' nests with protective netting from their natural network. Human intervention in this respect is more precarious, because these too belong to the group of nest-destroying ants - either willingly or through carelessness during forest work.

Subtenant

The ant nest is an ecosystem in its own right. The close coexistence of thousands of individuals, protective and partly air-conditioned nest constructions, continuous food supply, and waste create life possibilities for a hardly manageable and partly still unexplored diversity of organisms. Thereby the borders between random intruders, regular guests, and real subtenants become blurred.

With genuine subtenants, the pallet reaches from harmless waste recyclers, over annoying blackheads up to deadly robbers. Only rarely do the ants have any use from their "guests". These guests use a variety of methods to surprise the otherwise well-fortified ants: soothing or deterrent secretions, special agility or slowness, smooth and/or shield-like body surfaces, protective quivers for retreat, and - not to forget - chemical camouflage by adapting to the nest smell.

The relationship between ant and subtenant can be so close that the ant cares more for him or his brood than for his own. Drub- semisecret are in the game on that occasion, that the subtenant separates and is greedily licked by the ants. In the extreme-case

the neglect of the brood - it is through Nah- rungsentzug or brood-robbery through the Intermitted - leads to heavy impairments of the ant-people.

Ant-guests come from the most different animal-groups: Pseudoscorpions often act as pest controllers in animal nests. Mites of the genus Antennophorus "ride" on the ants and beg for food with their long front legs. Ant-assets (Platyarthrus hoffmannseggi), amei-seen silverfish (Atelier formicaria), and ant crickets (Myrmecophilus acervorum, are frequent guests in ant nests, where they live on waste.

Food with the feeding ants stands - len.

The flower bug Xylotomist formicetorum sucks on forest ant corpses. The larvae of the hoverfly genus Microdot, which were formerly misunderstood as nudibranchs, eat the brood or root lice in the ant nests. The tiny Shiny Tit lives exclusively in nests of forest ants, where it nibbles during the mutual feeding of the host animals. The larvae of the metallic rose chafer Potosi copra live on rotting nest material of forest ants. Mammals, e.g. wild pigs, rummage through the piles in search of these grubs. The shining beetle Aphorism marinates stalks returning workers of Lassies foliage- noses and stimulates them to give up food. Recognized too late as a beggar, it is protected against attacks by its back shield.

The blind club beetle Clavier testaceous lives with the yellow meadow ant and excretes "tasty" secretions. In return, it is looked after and fed like the ant-brood. The egg of a leaf beetle is encased in a cone-like shape. The larva hatches surround itself with a firm cover and eat the ant brood. Dined dentate, a short-winged beetle turns on when feeding among forest ants.

It also eats mites away from its hosts and is therefore useful. The rove beetle Temples publican- lays lives in the winter half of the year with My mica species, which it enters because of its glandular excretions. There it lives from theft and brood-robbery. In the summer half-year, it changes to forest ants, where it deposits larvae, which are fed by the hosts like their own brood. The caterpillar of the blue ants Masculine nauseous secretes "tasty" secretions for the red knot ant and is finally introduced. In the nest, however, the caterpillar is a dangerous predator.

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