# Are fire ants beneficial in any way? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 14, 2006, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-fire-ants-beneficial-in-any-way/360742 "2006-06-14T23:04:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2006, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-fire-ants-beneficial-in-any-way/360742/41 "2006-06-16T16:06:29Z")
[Joan Murray](http://www.kidzworld.com/site/p3442.htm) would have to say yes. > [@](#): > > In September 1999, Joan Murray was skydiving near Charlotte, North Carolina. Her main parachute failed to open during a jump from 14,500 feet. Her backup chute opened when she was 700 feet above the ground, but then it deflated. Joan crashed to the ground and landed in a mound of fire ants. Landing on a mound of fire ants usually isn’t a good thing, but doctors believe the stings from the fire ants may have helped keep Joan’s heart beating and saved her life. ---
**Author:** ![bonitahi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7993a0/32.png) [@bonitahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonitahi)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2006, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-fire-ants-beneficial-in-any-way/360742/42 "2006-06-16T16:17:50Z")
[QUOTE=BobLibDem] [Joan Murray](http://www.kidzworld.com/site/p3442.htm) would have to say yes. [/QUOTE] Wow. Any comments from Joan as to which hurt more, the crash to earth, or being eaten by the ants? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2006, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-fire-ants-beneficial-in-any-way/360742/43 "2006-06-16T16:23:32Z")
[QUOTE=bonitahi] Wow. Any comments from Joan as to which hurt more, the crash to earth, or being eaten by the ants? [/QUOTE] That would certainly be what is known as having a Very Bad Day. ---
**Author:** ![CC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f1d935/32.png) [@CC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CC)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2006, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-fire-ants-beneficial-in-any-way/360742/44 "2006-06-16T22:15:34Z")
[QUOTE=Colibri] Any organism fits into a ecosystem somehow. Every organism is preyed on (or somehow subsists on) and is prey for other organisms, and contributes to ecosystem functioning in some way. Whether it is “good” or “bad” or has “value” is entirely a subjective value made by humans. Is a higher diversity “good”? Is increased ecosystem biomass “better,” or would you prefer a more rapid rate of nutrient cycling? Unless you specify what you regard as “good” it is impossible to answer the question. [/QUOTE] Yow. Ya gotta be \*reeeaaaal \* careful how ya phrase things around here. Yeah, I guess I know the bit about subjective value judgements made by humans (who else?). I didn’t really mean to imply that. I actually meant that I thought the OP was just looking to understand a little something more about the ecofunction of fireants so that he could easier accept their presence in his surroundings. Thougt **Colibri** might enlighten us in that specific arena. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2006, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-fire-ants-beneficial-in-any-way/360742/45 "2006-06-16T22:38:50Z")
\*"As Mr. McGehee walked through one of his pastures on Wednesday, grasshoppers leapt up like popcorn popping around his feet. Chiggers, a tiny biting mite, have exploded. “I caught a calf the other day that had ear ticks,” he said. “I hadn’t seen ear ticks in 30 years.” \* I will e-mail this tidbit to Mrs. J., who still misses Texas. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2006, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-fire-ants-beneficial-in-any-way/360742/46 "2006-06-16T22:45:13Z")
[QUOTE=CC] Yow. Ya gotta be \*reeeaaaal \* careful how ya phrase things around here. Yeah, I guess I know the bit about subjective value judgements made by humans (who else?). I didn’t really mean to imply that. I actually meant that I thought the OP was just looking to understand a little something more about the ecofunction of fireants so that he could easier accept their presence in his surroundings. Thougt **Colibri** might enlighten us in that specific arena. [/QUOTE] That wasn’t primarily directed at you, it was in reference to the OP as well. There is no way to discuss how fire ants might be “valuable to the ecosystem” unless you specify what you consider to be “valuable.” Some ecosystems have high diversity, some have high productivity, some have high standing biomass. These may not only not be correlated, they may be mutually inconsistent. The thing is, the ecology of fire ants in North America, where they are not native, is quite different from their natural ecology in South America, where they are originally from. In the US they reach far higher densities and much larger colony sizes than they do in South America, presumably due to the absence of their natural predators and parasites (most notably a kind of parasitic fly). Fire ants in the US are essentially pathological relative to how they behave in their native range. Unfortunately, information on the web is so dominated by sites about controlling introduced fire ants it’s difficult to find much about their natural ecology (which is not all that well known in any case). In my book, fire ants have no redeeming ecological value in places where they are introduced. Whatever they do is probably detrimental compared to the original ecosystem. While they may have some small benefits, such as recycling nutrients or controlling ear ticks, these may not be accomplished as well as they were by the native fauna, and in any case are slight compared to the overall detrimental effects. Fire ants are just one kind of payback for messing around with Mother Nature. ---
**Author:** ![spingears](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@spingears](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spingears)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2006, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-fire-ants-beneficial-in-any-way/360742/47 "2006-06-17T16:57:19Z")
[QUOTE=Mangetout] Before the fall of man, they could talk; they only ate lightly-steamed spinach (which they cooked for themselves); they behaved with impeccable manners and they could lift one Billion times their own weight - allowing Adam and Eve to use them as a mode of transport. [/QUOTE] After the fall of man, they were proselyted by satan, hence the name “Fire Ants” and their nasty habit of biting. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2006, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-fire-ants-beneficial-in-any-way/360742/48 "2006-06-17T17:24:37Z")
[QUOTE=Colibri] In my book, fire ants have no redeeming ecological value in places where they are introduced. Whatever they do is probably detrimental compared to the original ecosystem. [/QUOTE] Wait a minute, now. Fair’s fair. If the OP has to define “beneficial,” then you have to define “detrimental.” Animals have always migrated into new environments with varying results. Granted, humans have accelerated that process by letting other animals hitch a ride from one ecosystem to another, but fire ants probably would have made it here sooner or later with or without human help. It’s not as if there are impregnable obstacles between South America and the southern US. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2006, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-fire-ants-beneficial-in-any-way/360742/49 "2006-06-17T17:56:47Z")
[QUOTE=spoke-] Wait a minute, now. Fair’s fair. If the OP has to define “beneficial,” then you have to define “detrimental.” [/quote] True. I let myself get a little carried away. 🙂 I was putting a value on diversity and integrity of the native fauna. Since fire ants probably reduce that, I would consider them detrimental. > [@](#): > > Animals have always migrated into new environments with varying results. Granted, humans have accelerated that process by letting other animals hitch a ride from one ecosystem to another, but fire ants probably would have made it here sooner or later with or without human help. It’s not as if there are impregnable obstacles between South America and the southern US. There _are_ fire ants that made it here before - there are species native to the southern US that do comparatively little damage, because they are integrated into the local ecological communities. These introduced species have failed to make it here over possibly millions of years, even though Pleistocene climate change could potentially have allowed migration through open-country corridors through areas that are (or were until recently) rain forest, where these species do not live. It’s extremely unlikely that these particular species would have reached the US without human help in anything short of geological time. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-fire-ants-beneficial-in-any-way/360742.md?page=2)