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
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