TYLER, Texas — The University of Texas at Tyler has received over $600,000 in funding from the National Science Foundation to study ants and their impacts on soil environments.
“This collaborative research award recognizes the high quality of our biology department’s work, which will help determine whether soil animals such as ants impact soils at larger scales,” said Dr. Kouider Mokhtari, UT Tyler interim senior vice president for research.
UT Tyler is collaborating with the University of Central Florida and Yale University's School of the Environment for the two year project, consisting of two parts.
The controlled-field experiment will be in Florida, where researchers will survey ant nests and document their physical, chemical and microbial changes in the soils from the nests.
Teams will also field survey along a 1,000 mile stretch from central Texas to central Florida to observe ant nests and soils.
“Organic matter in soils is an important ecosystem property as it can impact plant growth and reproduction,” said UT Tyler associate professor of biology Dr. Jon Seal, who leads the UT Tyler research team.
Ants are known to nest in the soil below the ground, a process called bioturbation, explains Seal who studies ant biology. He also mentions that ants tend to deposit soil from deep layers towards the surface, this process is called biomantling.
“The impacts of these movements could be profound since most soil nutrients are found in the uppermost layers. For example, ants could cover nutrient rich topsoil with soil from deeper nutrient poor soil, thus placing it out of reach of some plant species,” Seal said.
Seal said the soils observed in East Texas are primarily composed of sand and are poor in nutrients; compared to soils found in other Texas regions and the Midwest.
“Most nutrients are found in the upper most layers and result from the decay of organic matter, which are quickly lost or leached out due to frequent rains and the large size and porousness of the sand grains,” he added.