Does the Temperature Affect the Survival of Ants?

Underground Survival

• The ground absorbs heat and has higher and more stable temperatures than above-ground locations, allowing ants to survive. Also, they are not exposed to the wind chill when they live underground. However, they must eventually venture out of their anthills to find food. Wood ants can change their nests to regulate the internal temperatures. Near the entrance of the nest, these ants build mounds that serve as solar collectors, which increase the inside temperatures. For other species, the entrance to the ant nest closes naturally, due to soil covering the hole. The ants can push the soil out of the way in the winter and resume normal activities.

Home Residence

• Some species of ants, such as the pharaoh ant, create nests inside homes. Some colonies have several queens and hundreds of workers. Another species, the thief ant, can build a nest inside the house or near the foundation. The pavement ant forms a nest in the masonry walls of houses. Several ant species can form homes in dry cracks and joints between the structural elements of the home. While ants tend to hibernate during the winter, the furnace and heat from the sun warm the walls in the house and can wake up nested ants, causing them to become active during the winter.

Shelters

• Carpenter ants live in wood, which can serve somewhat as an insulator, though it still freezes inside. When the temperatures fall, the ants slow down their metabolism and the queen stops laying eggs. The workers develop fat in their bodies and their gasters visibly swell. Some ants find places to hibernate. For example, according to Japanese Ant Image Database, Camponotus obscuripes ants can find a withered tree and survive. Acorn ants live in small colonies contained within acorns, which are buried inside the ground. Most of these ants do not survive, though enough do to perpetuate the species.

Death

• Some species of ants do not survive winter at all. One species of hybrid fire ant in Georgia traveled up north, where it was subjected to colder Georgia temperatures. The fire ant hybrid was not able to survive the colder winter temperatures, according to the South Carolina Entomological Society.