6 replies to this topic

[cap_backfire]

I'm not out West but I was wondering if anyone was considering catching and raising ant queens this year for possible conservation efforts with all the wildfires just CRUSHING entire areas?   With the intent of specifically releasing them after they're past the founding stage when the weather calms down?   

I'm not suggesting anyone head out to the edges of these massive blazes but it is something I was considering for other species that will DEFINITELY be affected by this, checked back here, and wondered if there was anyone having similar thoughts.   I would have thought of this last year, but didn't care at all about ants at the time.   

I realize this is the LEAST someone could do to alleviate a massive issue but it's at least something, right?   

I would definitely help if I could, but don't even know the implications of this project or if it's worth even doing.    My assumption would be to release them into a previously burned area, or on the edges of said area after some regrowth has started.    

Thoughts?  

[gcsnelling]

Personally I feel there is nothing to worry about, most if not all of these species are well adapted to these periodic "disasters" and will recover fairly quickly.

[PurdueEntomology]

Personally I feel there is nothing to worry about, most if not all of these species are well adapted to these periodic "disasters" and will recover fairly quickly.

https://defenders.or...ient-ecosystems

 

Also, keep in mind that a species is not a a "fixed" entity, but rather a fluid population with various types of gene flows.  Species therefore are fluid by nature, always in a state of flux and never static (unless you are a strict creationist and "believe" that God made all creatures as they are, I fortunately do not hold that archaic understanding).  Species, or more precisely, gene sharing populations shift, diminish, vanish, transform and move on or just come to dead ends, think non-avian therapods. To better understand constant flux and change consider the genus of Doryline ants, Neivamyrmex.  There are over 120 recognized "species" and paleophylogenetically they all have a common ancestor or population of ants from which the current diversity arose.  Now all these thousands and thousands of individual colonies of various "species" of  Neivamyrmex living right now where we will assume gene flow between each species population has ceased, thus establishing the individual species, have always been unbroken mass numbers of ants per colony generation after generation year after year, century after century, millennium after millennium, epoch after epoch...unbroken fissioning clusters of ants and all that meandering in space and time going back millions of years populations separated and separated, filled different niches, different geographies till we have the current snap shot of Neivamyrmex, which is still under change and fluid movement.  So consider the Neivamyrmex opacithorax colony you find in Tennessee has literally been a "unit" a colony of mass individuals unbroken for millions and millions of years, just now you are see a "snapshot" of where it is, yet if it is successful and keeps fissioning and dividing and budding off in time divergences may occur, populations stop sharing genes and pow!! You have two or more separate species!!.  See species like this and understand that though we are seeing many "dead ends" or extinctions now, 99.9% of all species have run into that wall!

Edited by PurdueEntomology, July 24 2021 - 5:28 AM.

[JamesJohnson]

Personally I feel there is nothing to worry about, most if not all of these species are well adapted to these periodic "disasters" and will recover fairly quickly.

Take Pogonomyrmex occidentalis for example, which chews down vegetation around their colonies' mounds in order to protect it from fires.

[KadinB]

There’s tons of fires up here in nor cal. It seems like nor cal is where a ton of fires are all the time. I lost my house on November 8th 2018 because of the “camp fire” which killed 80 something people and happened in the morning. It mostly hit paradise (the town I used to live in) and a town more up the mountains called Magalia and a few other towns. It was caused by a spark in electrical stuff out in the middle of no where and the electrical thing was really really old. Nor cal is mostly dead vegetation so anything here burns easily. There was a fire a month before that one in a town called Redding which killed around the same amount of people and burned Hundreds of thousands of acres. Or how rn there is another fire next to the town of paradise which has gotten into the 100,000 I think and is pretty bad. There seems to always be a few big fires every year that get really bad. The new one that’s going on right now got so bad where they imported some sort of plane that drops tons of water all the way from Australia. Then there are always helicopters with water big water buckets. The fires get so bad here sometimes where they get fire fighters from states all around us and sometimes even from other countries.Wow this got long… but basically we always have a big fire going on here. Oh forgot to mention the camp fire swept through the town of paradise early in the morning. Ok I’m done.


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Edited by KadinB, July 23 2021 - 9:47 PM.

[ANTdrew]

Sorry to hear about your ordeal! If I were you, I’d try to leave CA when you’re older.

[KadinB]

Sorry to hear about your ordeal! If I were you, I’d try to leave CA when you’re older.

there’s some places where there’s no fires at all. Like where we live rn we’re in the middle of big town living in the subs and there will be small little fires in the outskirts but are always put out. Like a few days ago at our fair grounds some homeless people started a small fire but was just put out. The whole outside of the town is mostly farming and that’s basically all of nor cal just farming.


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