They were one of the dominant members of the Earth’s ecosystem about 100 million years ago. 50 million years ago, it hiked all the way from one place to another in search of some warmth. When Humans were not around, they were the Earth- dwelling species that turned and enriched the soil, even more then the earthworms. The creature in talk here is none other than ANTS. They made the soil fit for agriculture, predatory species of ants controlled insect pests and spider population as well as animal litter by devouring rotting carcasses. Other species dispersed seeds and domesticated aphids for food. But, a change in the environment 50 million years ago brought down the numbers of ANT population drastically. The only difference this time was that the climate change didn’t make the environment warmer but more cooler.
The scientists all over the World then collected data on fossilized remains of ants, the present climate, glacial history of sites and temperature change since the Ecocene period 50 million years ago. Thereby, emerged a global pattern on the biological diversity of ant communities.
There was sudden drop in temperature in the northern hemisphere which led to large extinction of the ant species in that particular area as the cooling effect was more pronounced in this hemisphere. As ants prefer warmer and dry areas, the population remained denser in southern hemisphere. The ground-foraging ants and the weaver ants particularly continued to thrive in southern hemisphere.
So the ants diversified most when the planet was warm and during the Ecocene era, the world was tropical and bubbling with ants. The WAO estimates that there are more than one billion ants born every minute. At this rate of population growth, there will be no more space for ants on this planet in future.
Climate change impacts us all; it did not spare one of the smallest creatures of Earth nor will it spare the mankind. It will hit the most vulnerable the hardest. Not so long ago we were happily ignorant of the trail of destruction in our wake. We polluted unknowingly and wasted gleefully. We mined, chopped and plundered enthusiastically. Then, from our plastic-wrapped bubble of carbon emissions, we looked proudly into the future and it didn’t look very good.
At the current level of climate change in an agriculture dominant economy like India, where agriculture is heavily dependent on monsoon, can soon lose its ability to feed a population which is estimated to increase by 500 million by 2050. Even the artificial measures to correct the lingering drought solution by infusing iodide sticks into the sky to seed clouds and hence causing artificial precipitation to make the soil moist, as done by China recently won’t be successful for long as everything done artificially comes at a price of other natural and valuable resources.
Protecting the most vulnerable will require the ingenuity and solidarity of every citizen. Through voluntary action, all of us can take responsibility for this big challenge and all our small actions can lead to big results.
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