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Journal of Undergraduate Research

Keywords

harvester ants, invasive plant, native plant, Rush Valley

College

Life Sciences

Department

Plant and Wildlife Sciences

Abstract

Invasive species pose a serious threat to earth’s ecosystems. This is a problem especially in the arid west where millions of acres of Great Basin shrubland have become dominated by invasive weeds such as cheatgrass and halogeton following disturbances like fire. Both of these invasive species lower the quality of the range by making it difficult for more desirable, native plants to become established. It has been shown that ant communities can be used to evaluate ecological response to disturbances in rangelands (Hoffman 2010). While there have been studies on the effect of fire on harvester ant communities (Suazo et al. 2013) and how ants affect the establishment invasive plants (Ostoja, Schupp, & Sivy 2009), it is not well established how fire affects ant influence on invasive plant establishment. In this study we track the harvester ant population for one year following fire and measure their impact on plant establishment through seed preference and seedling fate studies. We predict ant populations to increase in burned relative to undisturbed areas and ant activity to reduce plant invasion.

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