On East-West edges, they spread along the south-facing edge only; on North-South edges, they spread equally on both edges, but...they spread 3 times as fast on edges that are orientated N-S or E-S than on edges that are 'diagonal', i.e. NW-SE or SW-NE. These seem to be the worst of both worlds! 2/2

They do... but they like evening sun too! Nests were more numerous on the south-facing sides of edges than north-facing, as you would expect for a sun-loving species, but when we looked at their gradual spread along edges over a decade, things were a bit different. 1/2

Great questions! This species has many queens, so nests can be inherited by overlapping generations of related queens, and if conditions are right, can be occupied indefinitely! The nests grow fast, but I would estimate at least 10 years to reach this size, and this nest is likely much older

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Perhaps you might have seen the twig-nesting ant Leptothorax acervorum instead? It is a close relative of the Shining Guest Ant, and a very similar size, shape and colour, just a bit less shiny!

Thanks! This species of 'guest ant' (Formicoxenus nitidulus) is only found in Eurasia, but there are several other species found in North America. It would be very surprising if you found our European Shining Guest Ant away from red wood ants though, because it is an obligate commensal.

Might be harder to spot after you've sat on them... their hosts do tend to get annoyed easily! But do keep a look out, they are very distinctive once you have got your eye in. Most easily spotted in late summer or autumn, and on sunny days.

Good to know that I'm sneaking yet more ants into #FieldworkPodcast! The wood ants are already in there: bsky.app/profile/suw....

This Shining Guest Ant population genetics project was a collaboration between @york.ac.uk @jennistockan.bsky.social and @forestresearchuk.bsky.social, funded by @futurewoodlands.bsky.social Green open access version of the paper available here: pure.york.ac.uk/portal/en/pu... 5/5

We couldn't have completed this project without the excellent support from @yorkdatascience.bsky.social from the initial design to the final figures - including these which demonstrate genetic differentiation between Scottish and English popuations of Shining Guest ants 4/5 bsky.app/profile/york...

We also looked at how our UK Shining Guest Ants fit with other populations in Europe - but we found there wasn't much data to help understand this pattern. Fortunately the @monitant.bsky.social project will collect European-wide data to solve this problem. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/author... 3/5

In our study of Shining Guest Ants, we found that despite their tiny size, and having wingless males, Guest Ant populations are well-mixed within a site. This means that queens are successfully dispersing to other distant wood ant host nests within a site. 2/5 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/author...