– THE – Grapevine

PUTTING ANTS ON THE MAP Researchers from around the world joined forces to produce a global diversity map of the world’s ant populations. They constructed it using more than 14,000 maps of individual ant species and combined the data with computational wizardry to create the treasure map. Invertebrates represent most animal species on earth. Sometimes called “the little things that run the world”, they are fundamental to any healthy ecosystem. Ensuring their conservation in a rapidly changing world is urgent and critical. The problem is we know so little about them and their habitats. Effective conservation efforts rely on good datasets to make meaningful decisions and that’s something lacking in the invertebrate research world. Most conservation efforts focus on vertebrates. The treasure map shows ant species richness is greatest in tropical regions. It is moderately correlated…