http://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Ants play a variety of important roles in many ecosystems. As frequent visitors to flowers, they can benefit plants in their role as pollinators when they forage on sugar-rich nectar. However, a new study reveals that this mutualistic relationship may actually have some hidden costs. By transmitting sugar-eating yeasts to the nectar on which they feed, ants may be indirectly altering the nectar-chemistry and thus affecting subsequent pollinator visitations. http://phys.org/news286042950.html Biology Wed, 24 Apr 2013 17:22:36 EST news286042950 Anyone who has spent time in the tropics knows that the diversity of species found there is astounding and the abundance and diversity of ants, in particular, is unparalleled. Scientists have grappled for centuries to understand why the tropics are home to more species of all kinds than the cooler temperate latitudes on both sides of the equator. Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain the higher species numbers in the tropics, but these hypotheses have never been tested for the ants, which are one of the most ecologically and numerically dominant groups of animals on the planet. http://phys.org/news285830311.html Biology Mon, 22 Apr 2013 06:18:38 EST news285830311 The recently published genome sequences of seven well-studied ant species are opening up new vistas for biology and medicine. A detailed look at molecular mechanisms that underlie the complex behavioral differences in two worker castes in the Florida carpenter ant, Camponotus floridanus, has revealed a link to epigenetics. This is the study of how the expression or suppression of particular genes by chemical modifications affects an organism's physical characteristics, development, and behavior. Epigenetic processes not only play a significant role in many diseases, but are also involved in longevity and aging. http://phys.org/news279987194.html Biology Wed, 13 Feb 2013 14:30:02 EST news279987194 Researchers from North Carolina State University have found that one of the most aggressive invasive ant species in the United States – the Argentine ant – appears to have met its match in the Asian needle ant. Specifically, the researchers have found that the Asian needle ant is successfully displacing Argentine ants in an urban environment, indicating that the Asian needle ant – with its venomous sting – may be the next invasive species to see a population boom. http://phys.org/news279796754.html Biology Mon, 11 Feb 2013 09:19:29 EST news279796754 Natural selection can be an agonizingly long process. Some organisms have a way of taking matters into their own hands, or—in the case of the ant species Cerapachys biroi—mandibles. http://phys.org/news278925779.html Biology Fri, 01 Feb 2013 07:23:11 EST news278925779 (Phys.org)—Researchers have created an interactive website, called Antkey, which includes more than 1,150 images and 70 video clips to help users determine an ant's identity from more than 100 invasive and commonly introduced global species. http://phys.org/news273315364.html Biology Wed, 28 Nov 2012 08:56:18 EST news273315364 Ants that are held as slaves in nests of other ant species damage their oppressors through acts of sabotage. http://phys.org/news267872763.html Biology Wed, 26 Sep 2012 10:06:08 EST news267872763 The Borderea chouardii plant, which is critically endangered and is found only on two adjacent cliff sides in the Pyrenees, employs a unique and risky doubly mutualistic reproductive strategy with local ants, according to research published Sep. 12 in the open access journal PLOS ONE. http://phys.org/news266688149.html Biology Wed, 12 Sep 2012 17:02:42 EST news266688149 The first complete map of the ants' olfactory system has discovered that the eusocial insects have four to fives more odorant receptors—the special proteins that detect different odors—than other insects. http://phys.org/news266511731.html Biology Mon, 10 Sep 2012 16:02:24 EST news266511731 An international team led by New York University School of Medicine and BGI, the largest genomics organization in the world, has completed the first genome-wide and single-nucleotide resolution DNA methylomes of two ant species: Camponotus floridanus and Harpegnathos saltator. It provides new insights into the relationship between epigenetic regulation and caste differentiation of ants and also shed light on the epigenetic mechanism involved in social behavior, neurobiology and life-span of other animals. The latest study was published in Current Biology. http://phys.org/news264766885.html Biology Tue, 21 Aug 2012 11:21:37 EST news264766885 In a mutualistic relationship between an ant species and a carnivorous plant, the ants contribute to both prey capture and prey digestion of their host-plant and provide significant amounts of nutrients derived from their wastes. This offers the plant distinct growth advantages, according to research published May 9 in the open access journal PLoS ONE. http://phys.org/news255783722.html Biology Wed, 09 May 2012 17:00:01 EST news255783722 Scientists have developed a fast, cheap and reliable technique that vastly improves the chances of successfully reintroducing the endangered large blue butterfly to the UK. http://phys.org/news250160629.html Biology Mon, 05 Mar 2012 09:03:57 EST news250160629 (PhysOrg.com) -- There are over 1100 species of Pheidole genus ants, and most individual ants belong to either the worker or soldier caste. In only eight of the Pheidole species, some individuals can belong to a "supersoldier" subcaste instead, and these ants fight off predatory army ant species and bar their way by blocking off the entrances to the nest using their over-sized heads. Now, scientists have managed to create supersoldiers in other species by reactivating ancestral genes. http://phys.org/news245052113.html Biology Fri, 06 Jan 2012 06:50:01 EST news245052113 Studies of ant populations in Borneo reveal an unexpected resilience to areas of rainforest degraded by repeated intensive logging, a finding which conservationists hope will lead governments to conserve these areas rather than allow them to be cleared and used for cash crop plantations. http://phys.org/news238324173.html Biology Thu, 20 Oct 2011 10:09:44 EST news238324173 Four new Brazilian species in the genus Ophiocordyceps have been published in the online journal PLoS ONE. The fungi, named by Dr. Harry Evans and Dr. David Hughes, belong to a group of "zombifying" fungi that infect ants and then manipulate their behavior, eventually killing the ants after securing a prime location for spore dispersal. http://phys.org/news218311306.html Biology Wed, 02 Mar 2011 18:02:05 EST news218311306 Leafcutter ants, signature denizens of New World tropical forests, are unique in their ability to harvest fresh leaves to cultivate a nutrient-rich fungus as food. http://phys.org/news216584142.html Biology Thu, 10 Feb 2011 18:16:01 EST news216584142 U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists are releasing the fifth species of phorid fly to control fire ant populations. Red imported fire ants first arrived in the United States in the early 1930s and have been expanding along the southern portion of the country ever since, resulting in medical, agricultural and environmental impacts that cost the U.S. public billions of dollars each year. http://phys.org/news213447275.html Biology Wed, 05 Jan 2011 10:54:48 EST news213447275 In the complex world of ant-plant partnerships, serial monogamy can help trees maximize their evolutionary fitness, a new University of Florida study shows. http://phys.org/news204298049.html Biology Tue, 21 Sep 2010 14:28:57 EST news204298049 Scientists have finally sequenced the entire genome of an ant, actually two very different species of ant, and the insights gleaned from their genetic blueprints are already yielding tantalizing clues to the extraordinary social behavior of ants. http://phys.org/news202032513.html Biology Thu, 26 Aug 2010 14:00:06 EST news202032513 Chinese and German scientists have found a new butterfly species in the south of China. It is the first known species of the family of Large Blue butterflies which lives in mountain forests. http://phys.org/news195296343.html Biology Wed, 09 Jun 2010 10:20:01 EST news195296343 One of the most common house ant species might have been built for living in some of the smallest spaces in a forest, but the ants have found ways to take advantage of the comforts of city living. http://phys.org/news189173184.html Biology Tue, 30 Mar 2010 13:06:47 EST news189173184 Broadly speaking, ants have two different feeding strategies. A large proportion of all species are "carnivorous," meaning that they are generalist predators feeding on other small animals or scavenging on their remains. Some, however, are "herbivorous". http://phys.org/news178893395.html Biology Tue, 01 Dec 2009 12:37:42 EST news178893395 There are fewer species of ants in the northern hemisphere than in the southern hemisphere. This is the conclusion drawn by an international team of scientists that have studied 1,003 local ant assemblages on five different continents. According to the study, ant communities in the northern hemisphere may have suffered more extinctions as a result of the climate changes that occurred between 53 and 54 million years ago. http://phys.org/news160817116.html Biology Wed, 06 May 2009 08:27:05 EST news160817116 Nature is full of mutually beneficial arrangements between organisms—like the relationship between flowering plants and their bee pollinators. But sometimes these blissful relationships have a dark side, as Harvard biologist Megan Frederickson describes in an article for the May issue of The American Naturalist. http://phys.org/news160137299.html Biology Tue, 28 Apr 2009 11:36:03 EST news160137299 A new species of blind, subterranean, predatory ant discovered in the Amazon rainforest by University of Texas at Austin evolutionary biologist Christian Rabeling is likely a descendant of the very first ants to evolve. http://phys.org/news140716045.html Biology Mon, 15 Sep 2008 16:47:25 EST news140716045