Abstract
Biological invasions represent a serious threat for the conservation of biodiversity in many ecosystems. While many social insect species and in particular ant species have been introduced outside their native ranges, few species have been successful at invading temperate forests. In this study, we document for the first time the relationship between the abundance of the introduced ant, Pachycondyla chinensis, in mature forests of North Carolina and the composition, abundance and diversity of native ant species using both a matched pair approach and generalized linear models. Where present, P. chinensis was more abundant than all native species combined. The diversity and abundance of native ants in general and many individual species were negatively associated with the presence and abundance of P. chinensis. These patterns held regardless of our statistical approach and across spatial scales. Interestingly, while the majority of ant species was strongly and negatively correlated with the abundance and presence of P. chinensis, a small subset of ant species larger than P. chinensis was either as abundant or even more abundant in invaded than in uninvaded sites. The large geographic range of this ant species combined with its apparent impact on native species make it likely to have cascading consequences on eastern forests in years to come, effects mediated by the specifics of its life history which is very different from those of other invasive ants. The apparent ecological impacts of P. chinensis are in addition to public health concerns associated with this species due to its sometimes, deadly sting.
Highlights
Ants are among the most economically [1,2,3] and ecologically significant groups of biological invaders [4,5,6,7,8,9]
In our study of mature forests, the presence of P. chinensis was negatively correlated with both abundance and native ant species density at each of the scales considered
The abundance of several native ant species was strongly negatively associated with increasing densities of P. chinensis (Fig 4)
Summary
Ants are among the most economically [1,2,3] and ecologically significant groups of biological invaders [4,5,6,7,8,9]. Relatively few studies have examined the influence of invasive ants on native ant diversity in undisturbed or relatively undisturbed habitats and these studies primarily come from island ecosystems [10,11], tropical ecosystems [10,12,13] or temperate ecosystems such as riparian corridors and fire-adapted grasslands and woodlands [14,15,16,17,18] which have a high frequency of natural disturbance. There are 22 subfamilies of ants, the most widespread and damaging ant invaders come from the three most diverse and, arguably, ecologically dominant subfamilies ([21]; Dolichoderinae, Formicinae, and Myrmicinae), and originate from sub-tropical or tropical regions [6]. Tens of species from the diverse subfamily Ponerinae have been introduced outside their native range [6,22,23,24,25], no species from this subfamily have been recognized as invasive
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