Mound-building ants, and especially wood ants (Formica rufa group), are wide-spread key species that affect ecosystem functioning in several ways in the boreal forests of Eurasia. Forest clear-cutting harms wood ants, but the colonies gradually recover and multiply as forest succession proceeds. Thus their impact on ecosystem functioning may change with stand age. The objectives of this thesis ...

Mound-building Fmmica ants may be important biotic factors within prairie restorations because mounds found in virgin prairies can exist for decades, with densities up to 1,148 mounds/ha (465 mounds/acre). Research on the effects of Formica ant mounds on a virgin and an adjacent restored prairie (treatments) was established in 2003 near Olathe, Kansas; and it was expected that percent soil mois...

The ancient cultural tradition in the middle belt region of northern Ghana, with its stone circle and house mounds, contains varied material culture. The unique contextual arrangements of the material culture within the stone circle mounds and the diverse ceramic art forms, as well as their ethnographic analogues in West Africa, indicate the mounds' association with past shrines that have multi...

Cyfluthrin was evaluated in the field as a residual insecticide to develop a new strategy for control of Old World phlebotomine sand fly vectors of leishmaniasis, which live and rest inside termite mounds and animal burrows. This insecticide was evaluated as a residual spray in Baringo District, Kenya, during 1993. Termite mounds and animal burrows were treated with a cyfluthrin/corn oil mixtur...

In African savannas, vertebrate herbivores are often identified as key determinants of plant growth, survivorship, and reproduction. However, plant reproduction is likely to be the product of responses to a suite of abiotic and biotic factors, including nutrient availability and interactions with antagonists and mutualists. In a relatively simple system, we examined the role of termites (which ...

We examine avalanche statistics of rainand vibrationdriven granular slides in miniature soil mounds using experimental and numerical approaches. A crossover from powerlaw to non power-law avalanche-size statistics is demonstrated as a generic driving rate ν is increased, due to diminishing timescale separation (∼ ν) between stress buildup and release. For slowly-driven mounds, the tail of the a...