Carpenter, Melissa. Differential effects of human food subsidies on the nutritional ecology of urban ants living in the parks and street medians of Camden. Retrieved from https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/T3QZ2F9F
DescriptionHumans are the ultimate ecosystem engineers, and the impacts of humans on diversity and ecosystem functions may be particularly high in urban areas, where most of the world’s humans live. One likely effect of human activity is a change in the nutritional ecology of urban-dwelling animals via anthropogenic food waste. There are many possible consequences of non-human species consuming anthropogenic food, particularly if it becomes a significant component of their diet. I have worked to identify the consequences of urban ants consuming anthropogenic food. It has been previously shown that urban ants show a preference for fats, which is unusual compared to ants in natural areas. My study addressed the question of whether this preference was a result of consuming anthropogenic foods. First, I showed that anthropogenic foods provide ants with high levels of carbohydrates, but provide very little dietary fats. I then found that while providing additional anthropogenic food subsidies cannot cause a shift in the nutrient preference of ants that already showed an extreme preference for fats, it could cause ants who had previously showed only a moderate fat preference to switch to an extreme preference. This suggests that feeding on carbohydrate-rich anthropogenic foods has consequences on the nutritional ecology of urban ants.