“Ants are everywhere, but only occasionally noticed. They run much of the terrestrial world as the premier soil turners, channelers of energy, dominatrices of the insect fauna – yet receive only passing mention in textbooks on ecology. They employ the most complex forms of chemical communication of any animals and their social organization provides an illuminating contrast to that of human beings, but not one biologist in a hundred can describe the life cycle of any species. They represent the culmination of insect evolution, in the same sense that human beings represent the summit of vertebrate evolution.

“The impact of ants on the terrestrial environment is correspondingly great. In most terrestrial habitats they are among the leading predators of other insects and small invertebrates (Wilson, 1972; Jeanne, 1979; Levieux, 1982; Soren and Schmidt, 1987
“It is not surprising to find that ants also alter their physical environment profoundly. In the woodlands of New England, they move approximately the same amount of soil as earthworms, and they surpass them in tropical forests (Lyford, 1963; Abe, 1982). In the temperate forests of New York, they are responsible for the dispersal of nearly one-third of the herbaceous plant species, which in turn constitute 40 percent of the aboveground biomass (Handle et al., 1981). The aid in the spread of forest vegetation onto bare rocks in Finland (Oinonen, 1956) and foredune vegetation onto salt lakes in the USSE (Pavlova, 1977). Because ants transport plant and animal remains into their nest chambers, mixing these materials with excavated earth, the nest area is often charged with high levels of carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus.

“The abundance of ecological dominance of ants are matched by their extraordinary geographic range. Various of the approximately 8,800 known species are found from the arctic circle to the southern-most reaches of Tasmania, Tierra del Fuego, and southern Africa. The only places free of native species are Antarctica, Iceland, Greenland, Polynesia east of Tonga, and a few of the most remote islands in the Atlantic and Indian oceans (Wilson and Taylor 1967b). Four genera (Camponotus, Crematogaster, Hypoponera, and Pheidole) extend individually over most of this vast range (Wilson, 1976e).

“Ants are resistant to hard radiation. Colonies exposed to intense cesium-based irradiation in a French Forest suffered no evident decline or change in behavior during 11 months, even when some of the surrounding plants were dying or losing their leaves (Le Masne and Bonavita-Cougourdan, 1972). At least some ant species are also highly resistant to industrial pollution. Near a nitrogen plant in Poland, populations of Myrmica ruginadis and Lasius niger remained robust after other invertebrates became scarce. They actually reduced the concentration of nitrate, apparently by stimulation of micro-organisms that bind the pollutant (Petal, 1978).

“Surprisingly, some species are even able to survive under water. Queens and workers of Formica species can live for up to 14 days or longer while submerged, during which time they are in an anesthetized condition and their oxygen consumption falls to between 5 and 20 percent of usual resting rate. Oxygen consumption under water is highest in Formica uralensis, which lives in bogs and is most likely to suffer periodic flooding in the nest (Gryllenberg and Rosengren, 1984). In preliminary experiments, E. O. Wilson (unpublished) found that Cardiocondyla venustula colonies living close to the water on islands in the Florida Keys can withstand submergence in salt water for at least several hours.”