Geographical Range and Dispersal
The yellow crazy ant’s natural habitat is not known, but it has been speculated that the species originated in West Africa. It has been introduced into a wide range of tropical and subtropical environments including Caribbean islands, some Indian Ocean islands (Seychelles, Madagascar, Mauritius, Reunion, the Cocos Islands and the Christmas Islands) and some Pacific islands (New Caledonia, Hawaii, French Polynesia, Okinawa, Vanuatu, Micronesia and the Galapagos archipelago) The species has been known to occupy agricultural systems such as cinnamon, citrus, coffee and coconut plantations. Because the ant has generalized nesting habits, they are able to disperse via trucks, boats and other forms of human transport.
Crazy ant colonies naturally disperse through “budding”, i.e. when mated queens and workers leave the nest to establish a new one, and only rarely through flight via female winged reproductive forms. Generally, colonies that disperse through “budding” have a lower rate of dispersal and need human intervention to reach distant areas. It has been recorded that A. gracilipes moves at about 37–400 meters a year in Seychelles. A survey on Christmas Island, however, yielded an average spreading speed of three meters a day, the equivalent of one kilometre a year.
Read more about this topic: Yellow Crazy Ant
Famous quotes containing the words geographical and/or range:
“Mens private self-worlds are rather like our geographical worlds seasons, storm, and sun, deserts, oases, mountains and abysses, the endless-seeming plateaus, darkness and light, and always the sowing and the reaping.”
—Faith Baldwin (18931978)
“We must continually remind students in the classroom that expression of different opinions and dissenting ideas affirms the intellectual process. We should forcefully explain that our role is not to teach them to think as we do but rather to teach them, by example, the importance of taking a stance that is rooted in rigorous engagement with the full range of ideas about a topic.”
—bell hooks (b. 1955)