Ant-plant associations are an outstanding model to study the entangled ecological interactions that structure communities. However, most studies of plant-animal networks focus on only one type of resource that mediates these interactions (e.g, nectar or fruits), leading to a biased understanding of community structure. New approaches, however, have made possible to study several interaction typ...

Costs and benefits for partners in mutualistic interactions can vary greatly, but surprisingly little is known about the factors that drive this variation across systems. We conducted a meta-analysis of ant-plant protective mutualisms to quantify the effects of ant defenders on plant reproductive output, to evaluate if reproductive effects were predicted from reductions in herbivory and to iden...

Invasive ants are notorious for directly displacing native ant species. Although such impacts are associated with Argentine ant invasions (Linepithema humile) worldwide, impacts within natural habitat are less widely reported, particularly those affecting arboreal ant communities. Argentine ants were detected in North Carolina mixed pine-hardwood forest for the first time but were localized on...

Environ. Entomol. 27(4): 822-8.33 (1998) ABSTRACT The Argentine ant, Linepithema humile (Mayr), has spread worldwide, often decimating native ant populations and other arthropod species in invaded areas. It is not known what abiotic and biotic conditions limit its distribution. We investigated the distribution of the Argentine ant in the Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve in northern California, ...

This study proposes an Ant Colony Optimization using Genetic Information (GIACO). The GIACO algorithm combines Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) with Genetic Algorithm (GA). GIACO searches solutions by using the pheromone of ACO and the genetic information of GA. In addition, two kinds of ants coexist: intelligent ant and dull ant. The dull ant is caused by the mutation and cannot trail the pheromo...

Ant colony optimization (ACO) is a technique for optimization that was introduced in the early 1990’s. The inspiring source o f ant colony optimization is the foraging behavior of real ant colonies. This behavior is exploited in artificial ant colonies for the search of approximate solutions to discrete and continuous optimization problems and to important problems in telecommunications, such a...

The ant algorithms research field builds on the idea that the study of the behavior of ant colonies or other social insects is interesting for computer scientists, because it provides models of distributed organization that can be used as a source of inspiration for the design of optimization and distributed control algorithms. In this paper we overview this growing research field, giving parti...

Biotic interactions are often important in the establishment and spread of invasive species. In particular, competition between introduced and native species can strongly influence the distribution and spread of exotic species and in some cases competition among introduced species can be important. The Caribbean crazy ant, Nylanderia fulva, was recently introduced to the Gulf Coast of Texas, an...