An international team of scientists from six countries, led by researchers from the Biology Center of the Czech Academy of Sciences (CAS), conducted a unique field experiment on three tropical high mountains, in some of the last virgin forests in the world. In this intercontinental work, scientists offered ants different food in order to find out, which nutrients these important insects prefer most in nature.

The results, which among other things led to the discovery of more than 100 undescribed species of ants, were published in the journal Global Ecology and Biogeography.

Known as "ecosystem engineers," ants are often studied as a general model for answering the question of how insects respond to environmental changes. These socially living creatures are among the most common terrestrial invertebrates, reaching their greatest numbers and diversity in tropical forests.

"Until now, there has been no intercontinental comparison of the diversity of ants of different tropical mountains. And very little was known about what nutrients ants lack in their environment," says Petr Klimes from the Biology Center of CAS, who led the international study. "Everyone knows that unwanted ant visitors in the kitchen like sugar the most, but we wanted to find out if this is also the case in tropical nature.