Elemental 3: Fire Ants
Climate change operates through feedback loops. Heat works as a trigger that sets off a cascade of effects, making heat worse. These loops and cascades are often describes as physical interactions. But it’s important to put ourselves firmly in the story of these loops. I’ve been thinking about this in terms of cycles of heat and movement.
Our movement, combined with human-induced warming, lead to movements and flows in nature that then come back to impact our movement. I’ve come to think of it as a delayed form of human agency and vulnerability. The risks heat generates to our heath can be traced back through a tangle of interactions, through a story of movement.
Take red imported fire ants. These invasive creatures are tiny, as small as 2 mm, and a shiny copper red. Since 2001, Australia has managed to eradicated fire ants seven times, but recently expanding infestations in Queensland remain worryingly resilient. Just this year fire ant colonies were detected within northern New South Wales.
Fire ants are part of a group of ants labelled tramp ants. This category contains a bunch of ants with menacing names. Big-Headed Ant. Crazy Ant. The name ‘tramp ant’ means they’ve hitched a ride with humans as we’ve moved, and become invasive in a new location. They move within things that we move about: potting mix, railway sleepers, tree nursery pots.
Fire ants exacerbate human environmental impacts. They’re like an echo of our own actions. They thrive where we have already done damage. They succeed best in areas of ecological disturbance, where natural habituates have been replaced by lawns, or fields, the sides of roads, cleared then abandoned ground, or bush fire-effected areas.
This type of habitat destruction results in less biodiversity, ecological gaps that fire ants swiftly fill. This creates a cycle where fire ants can more easily outcompete other species.
Fire ants thrive on the effects of climate change. They become more active in the heat. As global temperatures rise, fire ants are more likely to survive migration into once inhospitable cooler climates. Even in regions normally too cool for fire ants, urbanisation generates spaces with just enough warmth at night to allow colonies to survive.
Fire ants can raft together and float on water, surviving up to weeks adrift. This means the more frequent flooding from global warming only increases their geographic reach.
Similar to humans, fire ants are a ‘generalist predator’. This means they impact every species level, up and down the food chain: insects, birds, reptiles, and even small mammals. To avoid the threat of fire ants, many animal species simply move out, into less optimum habitats where they are less adapted to survive.
All of these movements, led and exacerbated by human action, come back to haunt us, to stifle our own movements in ways that impact our wellbeing. Studies estimate that in urban areas where fire ants have gained a foothold, between 30-60 percent of people are bitten annually. Up to 16% of people bitten experience anaphylaxis. Children tend to be stung most frequently. People alter or reduce how they move about outside. Fire ants can have a profound impact on natural areas and green spaces where people seek recreation and relaxation, including beaches, parks, and fields. Playgrounds, campgrounds, and sports grounds become unusable.
Fire ants reveal how climate change requires a non-linear understanding of time. Through climate change, the past metabolizes into the present and future as it journeys through ecosystems. Human actions eventually return back, often with a new fiery sting in the tail.
Image by: AntWeb.org
