Award-winning research gives environmental traffic report
If you’ve ever had the occasion to come across the wagon-training species of tropical ants known as leaf cutters, you’d probably scoff at the notion that the industrious little trailblazers are actually rather fond of using our roadways.
Nevertheless, the resulting rise in insect traffic along man-made paths could spell significant consequences for tropical ecosystems, according to the award-winning research from Emilio Bruna, an assistant professor in the UF department of wildlife ecology and conservation, and his colleagues from the Universidade Federal de Uberlândia.
The work has received the 2007 Award for Excellence from the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation. The results deftly illustrate that, as dwarfed as they may seem amidst overwhelming plant and wildlife, roadways bring a powerful tilt to the balance of local ecosystems.
“Historically, people haven’t really considered that roads, these little strips of cleared land, could have huge impacts on the world around them,” Bruna said. “But then you look at a roadway map of an area, and you see just how dense the network is that crisscrosses the land. We need to know what those consequences are.”
When it comes to leaf-cutter ants, the roads could mean a multifold increase in abundance. The outer edge of a road makes the ideal nesting spot for queens of the species.
“You look at the tiny piece of leaf that each ant can carry, and it’s hard to picture what they can really do,” Bruna said. “They’re the primary herbivore in the New World tropics. They can strip trees overnight. And, we’re talking about potentially increasing their overall population several times over.”
The inter-university collaboration is now working on determining how much foliage the colonies can strip from their environment. However, their research covers just a sliver of the effect that roadways can have on ecosystems—not the least of which is the tendency of roadways to spread invasive species.
“We’re not just paving over or clearing areas out for our roads,” Bruna said. “We’re putting in miles worth of new environment for plants and animals to interact with in ways that we may not have thought about.”
Click here to read researchers' raves about this road work
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