Back to Peter Metcalfe's Home Page ANTS We tend to overlook ants as important agents within the ecosystem, only noticing them when they come to collect crumbs from our picnic or invade our homes after sweet foods. Australia has a huge number of different species of ant and a surprising number of our plants are geared up to have their seeds dispersed by ants. This is a suitable reward for a small insect but the seed has to be tough enough to withstand a hungry ant. Some wattles and Grevilleas have seeds that are attractive to ants. Not only do ants disperse seeds they are responsible for eating many seeds.
Ants are sometimes a problem when farmers sow small pasture seeds.
The ants steal the seeds and reduce the density of the resulting pasture. In autumn , when there are plenty of seeds available, you can find ant nests with piles of seed husks around the entrance. Because ants dig deep into the earth to build their galleries and tunnels ants are one of the major forces in turning over the soil. In wetter climates the worms are the earth movers but throughout the dry areas and where soils are sandy it would be the ants that plough the soil. Meat ants and bulldog ants build large permanent nests and protect the surface with gravel and small pebbles.