how are ants helpful to the environment?
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Ants play an important role in the environment. Ants turn and aerate the soil, allowing water and oxygen to reach plant roots. ... These seeds often sprout and grow new plants (seed dispersal). Ants eat a wide variety of organic material and provide food for many different organisms.
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Ants are important natural enemies of many insect pests and provide benefits such as improving soil. ... In avocado, ants are pests primarily because they disrupt biological control of other pests. Ants are primarily a problem in young avocado trees where mealybugs and other honeydew-producers are occasional pests.
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The extreme temperatures are considered to be the most significant stress factor for ants in arid and semiarid regions. Temperature directly affects foraging activities due to its effects on oxygen consumption, water loss, and transport cost.
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Ants are constantly on the hunt for food and water (moisture, in general) for their colonies, so your kitchen and bathroom are the most common spots to find ants. ... In addition to the crumbs and spills we leave behind, our sinks provide a water source, which ants need to survive,” said Dr.
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Are ants on trees good or bad? Ants are drawn to trees for two reasons. They're searching for sweet honeydew left behind by other insects, or they're making themselves at home inside trees with cavities and rotten wood. Generally, ants themselves don't damage a tree.
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Hopefully ants will not make it that far! Ants will also get into a sink that has dirty plates in or get into your bin too. Sometimes they are attracted simply by the smell of something sweet, so take care with items like fabric softeners or scented candles as these can sometimes act as attractants to them.
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Ants as a group are beneficial to humans. Their tunneling mixes and aerates the soil, in some places replacing the activity of earthworms. Many species feed on small insects that are serious crop pests.
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Ants are not producers. They don't have the ability to create their own food. Most producers are plants which use sunlight, carbon dioxide, and water...
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For ants, they're scavengers. Scavengers don't care whether their food is living, dead or decaying. They gather and eat as much as they can. Bonus point: an organism is only a decomposer when its end product is nutrients that are readily available for consumption of primary producers.
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However, these ants play an important role in maintaining the balance of their habitats because they cut back leaves, encourage new plant growth, and add nutrients to the soil by breaking down plant materials.
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Role in the Ecosystem: Great apes are especially important in helping spread the seeds of trees in the forests they inhabit. In some areas, the survival of the ecosystem is wholly dependent on the role that apes play in spreading seeds through their fecal matter. Without great apes, new trees could not grow.
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No, as they are probably useless in maneuvering underground or building living bridges or the kind of cooperative work we see ants do. Each has their own unique skill set, which they are born with instinctively and don't have to learn, so its not accurate to call these abilities intelligence let alone compare the two.
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While not as serious as the risk posed by other pests, ants are capable of carrying bacterial and disease-causing organisms that can possibly contaminate food. Sugar ants in particular are capable of causing infection because they are attracted to the sugary, greasy foods in your pantry.
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Tiny black ants typically found in and around the garden are not harmful as they do serve important functions out doors. Ants aerate the soil, break down organic matter and control the population of other insects. ... Any sign of ants may raise concern in another area, aphids, which are detrimental to your plants.
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Besides of sugary foods, ants also eat protein to grow. High protein in foods like peanut butter, meat and egg will surely attract a group of ants to come. They are also attracted to cooking grease which commonly is found in kitchen surfaces and cooking utensils.
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They have tiny, hooked claws at the ends of their feet which help them walk on the undersides of leaves and limbs. Much like a human rock climber uses a hook, ants use their claws to cling to jagged features of the surface. ... Ants would collect at the bottom, since they'd be unable to scale the walls.
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Just as a weed is a plant out of place, insects in the wrong place are pests. Ants play a very important role in the ecology of your garden for good and for not so good. ... The bad news is that ants can protect honeydew-producing, sucking insects that do a great deal of damage.