Kod knows. Anything ruind. Meetingless.
Is it Easy to be an Urban New York Ant?
If scientists learn how critters adapt to difficult-to-colonize locations (especially ants, which colonize just about every available habitat, and are able to make quick decisions), they will be more likely to learn how to maintain biodiversity in more readily habitable locations.
With this goal in mind, Marko Pecarevic and coworkers have studied ant life on street medians in New York City.
Why study ant life on street medians?
Current hypotheses state that wider street medians should host more species. This is an extrapolation from analogous studies in natural environments.
However, there’s good reason to suspect that unique features of urban life may result in different ecological adaptations. Human disturbance, for example, may be more prevalent on wider street medians, disrupting the local urban ecology.
Furthermore, it’s possible that ants treat street medians either as habitable islands (surrounded by inhabitable pavement), or a connecting patchwork linking more habitable environments (e.g. plants in sidewalk cracks). These are the kinds of questions probed by Pecarevic and coworkers.
The scientists sampled ants from 44 street medians in New York City in July 2006. (…) The scientists collected over 6600 ants from 13 species and 11 genera (the next highest classification above species). Ninety-four percent of the ants were from one of three species. The first is non-native, and the latter two are native.
photo { Sotheby’s Divine Comedy billboard featuring Maurizio Cattelan, Him, 2001 + cab door, 10 Ave, between W 28th and W 29th st, Thursday, October 7, 2010 }
