ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Insect Sci.
Sec. Invasive Insect Species
Spatial coexistence of invasive ants in fragmented urban habitats of their native range
Provisionally accepted
- 1Departamento de Biodiversidad y Biologia Experimental (DBBE), University of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina
- 2IBBEA (UBA-CONICET), CABA, Argentina
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Urban landscapes are increasingly recognized as key arenas for biological invasions, yet the mechanisms enabling the local coexistence of multiple highly invasive species remain poorly understood. Urban habitat fragmentation generates mosaics of habitat patches that differ in size, isolation, and microhabitat complexity, shaping ant community structure and competitive interactions. Here, we investigated ant assemblages across a mosaic of urban habitat patches within a university campus in Buenos Aires, Argentina, focusing on Ffour globally invasive ant species (Wasmannia auropunctata, Linepithema humile, Nylanderia fulva, and Solenopsis invicta) near the southern limit of their native ranges. We quantified species richness, abundance and composition using pitfall traps and evaluated species-specific indicators of food discovery, recruitment, and dominance using standardized bait experiments. Ant assemblages differed significantly among habitat patches, with marked spatial variation in richness, diversity, and species composition. Contrary to expectations of rigid dominance hierarchies, no single species consistently dominated across patches. Nylanderia fulva showed the highest numerical abundance and discovery efficiency, L. humile exhibited the strongest recruitment ability, and W. auropunctata displayed localized dominance near nesting areas, while S. invicta was rare and competitively subordinate. Ordination and multivariate analyses indicated strong spatial structuring of assemblages, consistent with the influence of urban fragmentation and patch-level heterogeneity. Overall, our results support a
Keywords: community structure, Ecological dominance, foraging behavior, Resource monopolization, species interactions
Received: 26 Dec 2025; Accepted: 05 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Muñoz, Álvarez Costa, Schilman and Calcaterra. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Pablo E. Schilman
Luis A. Calcaterra
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