Ants of New York City

A number of recent studies have focused on the ants of New York City.

Ant Species

Pecarevic et al. (2010) documented the following species occurring in medians (listed in order of number of samples, from highest to lowest):

• Tetramorium caespitum
• Lasius neoniger
• Solenopsis molesta
• Nylanderia flavipes
• Camponotus pennsylvanicus
• Lasius americanus
• Brachymyrmex depilis
• Formica subsericea
• Monomorium minimum
• Pheidole tysoni
• Aphaenogaster rudis
• Formica sp.
• Brachyponera chinensis

This work was followed up with additional sampling across more habitats.

Savage et al. 2015. Supplementary Table 2: Number of occurrences of each species in median and park habitats across both years of the study. Exotic species are denoted with asterices.

Species	Urban Medians (N=21)	Urban Parks (N=14)	Urban Forests (N=13)	Total (n=48)
Stigmatomma pallipes	0	2	2	4
Aphaenogaster carolinensis	‏0	‏1	1	2
Aphaenogaster fulva	0	1	1	2
Aphaenogaster rudis	0	1	8	9
Brachymyrmex depilis	0	3	5	8
Camponotus nearcticus	1	0	1	2
Camponotus pennsylvanicus	4	2	4	10
Camponotus sp.	2	0	0	2
Crematogaster cerasi	1	0	0	1
Crematogaster lineolata	0	1	0	1
Formica lasioides	1	1	0	2
Formica neogagates	0	0	1	1
Formica subsericea	0	1	3	4
Hypoponera opaciceps *	1	0	2	3
Hypoponera opacior	4	2	1	7
Hypoponera punctatissima *	2	0	3	5
Lasius americanus	4	1	2	7
Lasius cf. emarginatus *	2	5	3	10
Lasius flavus	0	0	3	3
Lasius interjectus	0	1	1	2
Lasius neoniger	13	3	0	16
Lasius niger *	1	1	0	2
Lasius pallitarsis	0	0	1	1
Lasius subglaber	0	0	1	1
Monomorium minimum	0	2	2	4
Myrmecina americana	0	3	3	6
Myrmica americana	0	0	3	3
Myrmica cf. punctiventris	0	1	0	1
Nylanderia flavipes *	9	8	11	28
Pheidole tysoni	2	1	1	4
Ponera pennsylvanica	1	4	5	10
Prenolepis imparis	0	3	3	6
Proceratium silaceum	0	0	1	1
Strumigenys pulchella	0	0	2	2
Strumigenys rostrata	0	2	0	2
Solenopsis molesta	7	4	1	12
Stenamma brevicorne	0	0	1	1
Stenamma impar	0	2	1	3
Tapinoma sessile	0	9	8	17
Temnothorax curvispinosus	0	1	7	8
Temnothorax longispinosus	0	2	3	5
Tetramorium caespitum sp. gr*	21	5	9	35
Total	76	73	104	253

References

• Penick, C. A., A. M. Savage, and R. R. Dunn. 2015. Stable isotopes reveal links between human food inputs and urban ant diets. doi:10.1098/rspb.2014.2608
• Pecarevic, M., J. Danoff-Burg, and R. R. Dunn. 2010. Biodiversity on Broadway - Enigmatic diversity of the societies of ants (Formicidae) on the streets of New York City. PLoS ONE. 5(10): e13222:8 p.
• Savage, A. M., B. Hackett, B. Guénard, E. K. Youngsteadt, and R. R. Dunn. 2015. Fine-scale heterogeneity across Manhattan's urban habitat mosaic is associated with variation in ant composition and richness. Insect Conservation and Diversity. 8:216-228. doi:10.1111/icad.12098