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Investigating the Effects of Foreign Worker Introduction on Formicidae Colony Behavior and Mung Bean Seed Germination

CSEF · 2026 Earth & Environmental Sciences(Senior Division)

Tyler Au, Alex Dao

Overview

Ants, given their size, function as ecosystem engineers, which are critically essential to almost all terrestrial environments. However, whether intraspecific and interspecific conflict among their complex social structures affects their ecological service has yet to be tested. This unresolved matter prompts our investigation into whether the social conflict of an invading colony disrupts ants’ role of supporting their ecosystem. In our experiment, we created two groups: 8 trials of the control and 8 trials of the experimental colonies. In the experimental colony, we added ants from an outside colony daily to the habitat. This enabled us to assess and compare Red Harvester Ant colony behavior and its contribution to soil quality, while accounting for stress induced by the introduction of foreign worker ants. From the investigation, we found that introducing ants did indeed have a significant effect on both the social behavior of the native colony and the soil quality, supporting our alternative hypothesis. Additionally, the qualitative and quantitative observations recorded in our lab notebook also support our displayed data. We acknowledge that our concluding data has some areas for improvement, which we can address next time with the newly gained experience. The addition of continuous data collection throughout our trials and the extension of trial duration would help us present our findings more powerfully. Ultimately, we successfully applied our scientific skills to complete our first-ever OCSEF project, providing a baseline for understanding the implications of ecosystem stability in naturally occurring conflict.

Competition history

  • CSEF 2026 Earth & Environmental Sciences(Senior Division) · Entry S-08-07

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