Lakegirl_49
IMG_0142
What is the organism?
The little black ant.
How does it disperse?
When a colony becomes crowded the winged individuals can fly off and establish new colonies.
What is its global range?
According to antweb, nearctic, neotropical, USA, Paraguay, and Mexico.
How does it reproduce?
Ants rely on queens to reproduce. There are few ants in a colony that are able to reproduce. There can be multiple queens and they mate with drones to produce all of the offspring for a colony.
How many reproductive units does it create?
A queen can live up to 30 years laying 800-1500 eggs per day.
Does it have any particular adaptations of note?
Ants create large colonies that are well organized. Even though each ant comes from the same queen they are polymorphic and each morph has a specific job that contributes to the group as a whole.
Resources:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant#Behaviour_and_ecology
www.antweb.org/description.do?name=minimum&genus=mono...
Is it a single or multiple population(s)?
There are multiple populations
Where are the nearest mating members?
There are many queens all underground being protected by workers.
How is it distributed (random, clumped, uniform) at each location or over the entire range
of your site?
I would say clumped in some areas (eg areas better for digging) such as trails, but they are dispersed all over my location.
Do you think the population you are observing is a source or sink?
This population is a source.
Where do the offspring of the population you are observing go?
The offspring that are workers an not reproducers will stay in the colony for life. Since the ants that create more colonies are highly mobile they can go pretty much anywhere.
Where do immigrants come from?
Immigrants are not really an important factor for ants since they have such a small breeding population. Immigrants would establish their own colony. They could come from the surrounding area, or really anywhere since ants are so widely dispersed.
Plug the average number of offspring created by an individual during one time period, as
well as the number of individuals you estimated, into the geometric population growth
equation. There are countless ant colonies in such a large area. I picked a small portion of a sand track and counted them there.
What should the population be in 5 cycles?
18(1100)(5)= 99,000
In 20 cycles? 3,960,000
This model is a hypothesis of sorts.
Do you think your population is experiencing this type of growth? Explain why you think this.
No, there are more factors than this. Some will die, or not hatch. Although with such a large population growth the population will definitely still grow much larger quickly.
IMG_0142
What is the organism?
The little black ant.
How does it disperse?
When a colony becomes crowded the winged individuals can fly off and establish new colonies.
What is its global range?
According to antweb, nearctic, neotropical, USA, Paraguay, and Mexico.
How does it reproduce?
Ants rely on queens to reproduce. There are few ants in a colony that are able to reproduce. There can be multiple queens and they mate with drones to produce all of the offspring for a colony.
How many reproductive units does it create?
A queen can live up to 30 years laying 800-1500 eggs per day.
Does it have any particular adaptations of note?
Ants create large colonies that are well organized. Even though each ant comes from the same queen they are polymorphic and each morph has a specific job that contributes to the group as a whole.
Resources:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant#Behaviour_and_ecology
www.antweb.org/description.do?name=minimum&genus=mono...
Is it a single or multiple population(s)?
There are multiple populations
Where are the nearest mating members?
There are many queens all underground being protected by workers.
How is it distributed (random, clumped, uniform) at each location or over the entire range
of your site?
I would say clumped in some areas (eg areas better for digging) such as trails, but they are dispersed all over my location.
Do you think the population you are observing is a source or sink?
This population is a source.
Where do the offspring of the population you are observing go?
The offspring that are workers an not reproducers will stay in the colony for life. Since the ants that create more colonies are highly mobile they can go pretty much anywhere.
Where do immigrants come from?
Immigrants are not really an important factor for ants since they have such a small breeding population. Immigrants would establish their own colony. They could come from the surrounding area, or really anywhere since ants are so widely dispersed.
Plug the average number of offspring created by an individual during one time period, as
well as the number of individuals you estimated, into the geometric population growth
equation. There are countless ant colonies in such a large area. I picked a small portion of a sand track and counted them there.
What should the population be in 5 cycles?
18(1100)(5)= 99,000
In 20 cycles? 3,960,000
This model is a hypothesis of sorts.
Do you think your population is experiencing this type of growth? Explain why you think this.
No, there are more factors than this. Some will die, or not hatch. Although with such a large population growth the population will definitely still grow much larger quickly.