The genealogy and spreading of one of the most damaging species of ants

If you actually read some of this, you could replace fire ants with humans and make similar conclusions. Genetic bottlenecks, spreading, being an invasive species, etc. etc. It's good that we're in control and the fire ants are not. They might have as much reason to deal with us as we do with them.

I live in Texas and Invicta is everywhere. They are an extremely successful invader. The native red ant population has been mostly wiped out locally. Fire ants are interesting in that they can form enormous distributed colonies with multiple queens making them tough to eradicate. Plus I am allergic to them.

Fire ants: the one species that I'd like to see wiped out!

Not mosquitoes?

Mosquitoes are worse. Fire ants don't carry disease.

Not only that, but it seems like the "invasive" nature of fire ants is starting to get resisted. Local fauna have finally figured out that fire ants are a useful, concentrated food source and some predators are finally starting to emerge.