[Naturens] Ants

The recent death of E. O. Wilson naturally led me to think about ants. I have long supposed that ants would survive any habitat disruption due to the innate power of hive wisdom.     When ants become aware of a threat they don't protest or stage marches; they act. I don't have notes but it has been at least 20 years (perhaps >30) since I have seen a smoke like column of ants leaving their hill for a mating flight.     The first time I saw one of these columns I was at Moosehorn Lake; at the road end where Raccoons dug up Painted Turtle eggs each year until no eggs were laid there and the column of "smoke" was near remains of an old sawmill to the east. When I got there the smoke column became a stream of ants flowing uphill in a mating flight. I happened to be home when another column of ants emerged once from a hidden ant hill on a bank in the lawn.     Another time I was able to observe an ant mating flight, which continued from late morning until early afternoon, by standing in the shade of the house. One can not see individual ants but ant activity is evidenced by the glitter of sunlight (apparently) reflecting from the wings of falling dead males. (At the time I thought the glitter was from shed wings). Shortly after, many birds gathered in a large Ash tree and made much chatter while I assume feeding on ants.     Once I found live ants in the pith at the very top of an Ash tree so checked to see how they got there; reached the pith at tip by tunneling up through pith of tree from below ground. Pileated Woodpecker feeding holes in Poplar or Spruce usually signal ant entry from below ground and the inner lower sections of dead trees are sometimes loose incomplete cylinders of  wood; the residues of the combined action of decay and ant feeding.     I don't know whether ants are able to digest wood or only the fungal hyphae which grow on the surfaces of tunneled wood. Carpenter ants sometimes get into house timbers suggesting an ability to digest some fraction at least of the wood. But eventually a tree, especially Poplar and Spruce, may become little more than a pipe which contains loose residues of the original.     One leaning poplar which I cut several years ago, while there was still enough sound wood to avoid a hung tree, was a pipe of sound wood about 2" thick and 25" diameter at the butt encasing a core of rotting wood rich in fungal growth.     I normally cut wood to 16" length and stack it in tiers where cut to season for at least one year; protected by a strip of black polyethylene. These used to quickly become ant apartments but recently many tiers have no ants. This may simply reflect an increase in partially hollow trees.  Since about 1990 my Spruce have been dying faster than I and two friends can salvage them. And in Kentville many conifers have died in recent decades both native and introduced: all good ant apartments; above and below ground.         Roughly half of the carbon, and ant fodder, in a tree is below ground.     Writing about ants is like eating peanuts; once you get started it is difficult to stop. Dave, Kentville