To most of us, they are small, uninteresting and sometimes annoying, but 2022 revealed just how ubiquitous ants are and how indispensable they are to the planet. Scientists revealed in September that there are an estimated 20 quadrillion (or 20 million billion) ants globally – that’s 2.5 million for every person on the planet.
More than 12,000 known species of ant live in all sorts of habitats, from the Arctic to the tropics and they represent one of the most diverse, abundant and specialist groups of animals on the planet. Leafcutter ants are fungus farmers, slave-making ants capture broods to increase their work force, while wood ants herd aphids to the juiciest parts of a plant to harvest their honeydew sap.
Dr Sabine Nooten and behavioural scientist Dr Patrick Schultheiss, of the University of Würzburg, who were lead authors of the research, have drawn up a global map of ant abundance and are now investigating how ants have been influenced by factors such as climate, habitat destruction, urbanisation and agriculture.
“Are any of these things potentially driving higher or lower numbers of ants?” asks Nooten. “Some studies span 80 years, so we can also extrapolate into the future to see [what might happen to ants if] the environment changes that much again.”
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