Red imported fire ants have earned a justifiably bad rap across the south and most Texans would be hard put to name a single redeeming quality the ants have.
“While red imported fire ants have been demonstrated to have negative consequences on the environment such as reducing populations of the endangered Attwater’s prairie-chicken, our work points out that a predatory arthropod such as this invasive ant species may be capable of impacting vector-borne disease transmission by altering vector and host dynamics in ways that could reduce disease transmission to both humans and animals,” said Dr. Jessica Light, associate professor and Texas A&M AgriLife Research scientist in the department of wildlife and fisheries sciences.
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