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Worldwide ant invasions under climate change

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Abstract

Many ants are among the most globally significant invasive species. They have caused the local decline and extinction of a variety of taxa ranging from plants to mammals. They disturb ecosystem processes, decrease agricultural production, damage infrastructure and can be a health hazard for humans. Overall, economic costs caused by invasive ants amount to several billion US $ annually. There is general consensus that the future distributions of invasive species are likely to expand with climate change, however this dogma remains poorly tested. Here we model suitable area globally for 15 of the worst invasive ant species, both currently and with predicted climate change (in 2080), globally, regionally and within the world’s 34 biodiversity hotspots. Surprisingly, the potential distribution of only five species was predicted to increase (up to 35.8 %) with climate change, with most declining by up to 63.3 %. The ant invasion hotspots are predominantly in tropical and subtropical regions of South America, Africa, Asia and Oceanic islands, and particularly correspond with biodiversity hotspots. Contrary to general expectations, climate change and invasive ant species will not systematically act synergistically. However, ant invasions will likely remain as a major global problem, especially where invasion hotspots coincide with biodiversity hotspots.

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Acknowledgments

This paper was supported by the Région Ile-de-France (03-2010/GV-DIM ASTREA) and the ANR (2009 PEXT 010 01) grants.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ecologie, Systématique and Evolution, UMR CNRS 8079, Univ. Paris Sud, Orsay Cedex, 91405, France

    Cleo Bertelsmeier, Gloria M. Luque & Franck Courchamp

  2. Ecosystem Sciences, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, PMB 44, Winnellie, NT, 0822, Australia

    Benjamin D. Hoffmann

Authors
  1. Cleo Bertelsmeier
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  2. Gloria M. Luque
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  3. Benjamin D. Hoffmann
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  4. Franck Courchamp
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Cleo Bertelsmeier.

Additional information

Communicated by Jens Wolfgang Dauber.

Appendix

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

10531_2014_794_MOESM1_ESM.docx

Table A1 Non-collinear variables (see materials and methods), used to model each species’ potential distribution (6 variables per species) (DOCX 227 kb)

10531_2014_794_MOESM2_ESM.pdf

Fig. A1 Variation in model performances as determined by the area under the curve (AUC) of the Receiver Operating Characteristic curve, mean ± SD) across the 5 algorithms for the 15 ant species. Ag = A. gracilipes, Lh = L. humile, Ln = L. neglectus, Md = M. destructor, Mf = M. floricola, Mp = M. pharaonis, Mr = M. rubra, Pl = P. longicornis, Pm = P. megacephala, Sg = S. geminata, Si = S. invicta, Sr = S. richteri, Ta = T. albipes, Tm = T. melanocephalum, Wa = W. auropunctata (PDF 107 kb)

Fig. A2 Maps of current and future (2080) climatic suitability for the 15 invasive ant species (PDF 2178 kb)

10531_2014_794_MOESM4_ESM.pdf

Fig. A3 Variation in predicted changes of suitable area between 6 future climatic scenarios (including 2 SRES and 3 GCMs) for the 15 invasive ant species. Red lines indicate the values of the consensus models. Ag = A. gracilipes, Lh = L. humile, Ln = L. neglectus, Md = M. destructor, Mf = M. floricola, Mp = M. pharaonis, Mr = M. rubra, Pl = P. longicornis, Pm = P. megacephala, Sg = S. geminata, Si = S. invicta, Sr = S. richteri, Ta = T. albipes, Tm = T. melanocephalum, Wa = W. auropunctata (PDF 97 kb)

10531_2014_794_MOESM5_ESM.pdf

Fig. A4 Spatial shift of net suitable area of the 15 invasive ant species. Areas in blue = only suitable under current climatic conditions; areas in red = only suitable under future (2080) climatic conditions; areas in yellow = suitable under both current and future climatic conditions. σ = Spatial congruence. ϒ = Stable range. Ag = A. gracilipes, Lh = L. humile, Ln = L. neglectus, Md = M. destructor, Mf = M. floricola, Mp = M. pharaonis, Mr = M. rubra, Pl = P. longicornis, Pm = P. megacephala, Sg = S. geminata, Si = S. invicta, Sr = S. richteri, Ta = T. albipes, Tm = T. melanocephalum, Wa = W. auropunctata (PDF 476 kb)

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Bertelsmeier, C., Luque, G.M., Hoffmann, B.D. et al. Worldwide ant invasions under climate change. Biodivers Conserv 24, 117–128 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-014-0794-3

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