The Argentine ant, Linepithema humile (Mayr) established in the South of Portugal (Algarve), about 120 years ago. This is an invasive species with good dispersion capacity.

Comparing the composition of ant communities foraging in tree canopy in citrus orchards among the three ecological subregions of Algarve (Litoral, Barrocal and Serra) it was verified that the invasive dominant species L. humile was absent from Serra. Why?

Can the presence of other dominant native species prevent the invasion of the Argentine ant?!

 

This was the hypothesis tested in this work, dominant native ant species, such as Tapinoma nigerrimum (Nylander) and Lasius grandis Forel be able to prevent the Argentine ant from invading Serra.

 

Laboratory experiments were carried out, using both Petri dish arenas and cages to assess the antagonistic interactions between the Argentine ant and two dominant native species, at the individual and colony level, respectively.