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Yellow crazy ants (Anoplolepis gracilipes) reduce numbers and impede development of a burrow-nesting seabird

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Abstract

Yellow crazy ants (Anoplolepis gracilipes) are a significant threat to biodiversity due to a rapidly expanding range and the potential to disrupt ecosystem interactions at multiple trophic levels. Extirpation of ground-nesting seabirds subsequent to yellow crazy ant invasion has been reported anecdotally. Yellow crazy ant control is difficult and resulting positive effects on nesting seabirds is undocumented. We report the effects of ant invasion and subsequent control on burrow-nesting seabirds following the invasion of more than half of a 1.25-ha wedge-tailed shearwater (Ardenna pacifica) colony located on eastern O‘ahu. The number of active seabird burrows in invaded areas dropped from 125 in 2006 to 6 in 2010, with no corresponding decline in active burrows in adjacent, uninvaded areas. Ant control efforts in 2011 reduced ant densities by more than 97% and resulted in a substantial increase in active burrows (43 in 2011). In invaded areas, burrows appeared to be abandoned by adults prior to egg-laying. Chicks surviving in invaded areas exhibited mild to severe developmental abnormalities, and overall had shorter culmens, tarsi and wingchords, smaller eye diameters, and lower weights than chicks outside invaded areas. We conclude that yellow crazy ants constitute a significant, and likely underestimated, risk to ground-nesting seabirds. Loss of seabird nesting colonies can have significant effects on nutrient inputs, and can bring about shifts in plant communities and faunal composition. Range expansion of yellow crazy ants is expected and ant/seabird interactions are likely to increase.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Rachel Rounds and Megan Laut for expert help in the field, Thierry Work and the staff at the National Wildlife Health Center, Honolulu Field Station for providing necropsy results, Adam Vorsino and Pat Aldrich for advice on statistical analyses, Fred Amidon for assistance with Figure 1 and Paul Krushelnycky, Chris Farmer, Cynthia King and Will Haines for feedback on an early draft. In addition, two anonymous reviewers provided comments that greatly improved the manuscript.

Funding

This work was supported by the Pacific Islands Coastal Program and Marine Corps Base, Hawai‘i, but no specific grants from these funding agencies or others in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors were received.

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  1. Christine Camacho Fejeran

    Present address: Guam Department of Agriculture, 163 Dairy Road, Mangilao, Guam

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Coastal Program, Pacific Islands Fish and Wildlife Service Office, 300 Ala Moana Blvd, Rm 3-122, Honolulu, HI, 96850, USA

    Sheldon Plentovich

  2. Marine Corps Base Hawai‘i, Kāne‘ohe, HI, 96863, USA

    Todd Russell & Christine Camacho Fejeran

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  1. Sheldon Plentovich
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  2. Todd Russell
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Correspondence to Sheldon Plentovich.

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Plentovich, S., Russell, T. & Fejeran, C.C. Yellow crazy ants (Anoplolepis gracilipes) reduce numbers and impede development of a burrow-nesting seabird. Biol Invasions 20, 77–86 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-017-1516-z

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