Research on ant mating flights, which I was involved with, is today featured on the BBC News website.
Last year, I was involved with a project developed by the University of Gloucestershire and the Royal Society of Biology that used citizen science data to investigate mating flights in the black garden ant Lasius niger in the UK. The project got an impressive 13,000 individual observations of flying ants across the entire UK in 2012, 2013 and 2014. This data, combined with local meteorological data (wind speed, temperature and pressure) was used to investigate the factors that influence the ant’s decision on when exactly to initiate the nuptial flights (where winged males and females take to the sky in order to mate). The main findings were that ant flights are less coordinated than expects, are that there are ants flying somewhere in the UK on most days throughout the summer. However, ants in the southern and eastern part of the country generally fly a few days earlier in the summer than those in the northern and western part. Flights usually also only took place at temperatures above 13 C and at wind speeds less than 6 m/s.
My main contribution was to help analyse the data using primarily generalised linear mixed models and develop the figures.
The research has been accepted in the journal Ecography, where the article will be published later in the year.
Update (1st of June 2018): The paper has now been published in a physical issue of Ecography andthe reference is:
Hart, A., Hesselberg, T.,Nesbit, R. and Goodenough, A. E. (2018). The spatial distribution and environmental triggers of ant mating flights: using citizen‐science data to reveal national patterns. Ecography 41, 877-888.
doi.org/10.1111/ecog.03140.
Abstract:
Many ant species produce winged reproductive males and females that embark on mating flights. Previous research has shown substantial synchrony in flights between colonies and that weather influences phenology but these studies have been limited by sample size and spatiotemporal scale. Using citizen science, we gathered the largest ever dataset (> 13 000 observations) on the location and timing of winged ant sightings over a three‐year period across a broad spatial scale (the United Kingdom). In total, 88.5% of winged ants sampled were Lasius niger. Observations occurred from June to September with 97% occurring in July/August but exact temporal patterns differed substantially between years. As expected, observations within each year showed a small but significant northward/westward trend as summer progressed. However, the predicted spatiotemporal synchrony was far less apparent; observations were not significantly spatially clustered at national, regional or local scales. Nests in urban (vs rural) areas and those associated with heat‐retaining structures produced winged ants earlier. Local weather conditions rather than broad geographical or seasonal factors were shown to be critical in the timing of winged ant activity, presumably to optimize mate finding and to minimize energy consumption and predation. Temperature and wind speed, but not barometric pressure, were significant predictors of observations (positively and negatively, respectively); winged ants were only observed at temperatures > 13°C and wind‐speeds < 6.3 m–1. All days with a mean daily temperature > 25°C had observations. Intriguingly, changes in temperature and wind speed from the day before flight peaks were also significant. We conclude that: 1) spatiotemporal synchrony in flights is lower than previously thought for L. niger, 2) local temperature and wind are key predictors of flight phenology; and 3) ants appear able to determine, at least in a limited way, if weather is improving or deteriorating and adjust their behaviour accordingly.
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