ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2022
The abundance, biomass, and distribution of ants on Earth.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 77 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
77 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Pooled it
- Control of pest ants by pathogenic fungi: state of the art.Frontiers in fungal biology · 2023Pooled it
- Patterns in Coral Fecundity Across the Indo-Pacific.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Transposable elements as evolutionary catalysts of ant macrodiversity.Science advances · 2026Article
- The predatory behavior of ants: an impressive panoply of morphological adaptations.Insect science · 2026Review
- Farmers' Perceptions of the Agricultural, Economic, and Health Impacts of Fire Ants in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest.Insects · 2026Article
- Endoreduplication underlies body size variation in monomorphic ants.Frontiers in zoology · 2026Article
- Harvesting the Casualties of War:Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Data source effects on the perceived distribution of ant diversity in the Espinhaço Mountain Range, Brazil.npj biodiversity · 2026Article
- A meta-analysis of ant-mediated effects on soil carbon cycling and organic matter stability.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Arthropod Assemblages in Desert Ecosystems of Alula County, Saudi Arabia.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Body Size Evolution in Burying Beetles (Staphylinidae: Silphinae:Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Transcriptomic prey-capture responses in convergently evolved carnivorous pitcher plants.The New phytologist · 2026Article
- Integrating species distribution modeling and climate projections to predict ant species redistribution.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Environmental conditions shape the global distribution of ant societies.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Functional Characterization and Antifungal Activity of Insect-Derived Chitinases Expressed inPolymers · 2026Article
- Life history induces markedly divergent insect responses to habitat loss.The Journal of animal ecology · 2026Article
- The littler things that run the little things that run the world.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Ant Diversity and Stratification in an Amazonian Rainforest.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Measuring competition coefficients in an ant community: Implications for intraspecific adaptation load.Ecology · 2025Article
17 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Knowledge on the distribution and abundance of organisms is fundamental to understanding their roles within ecosystems and their ecological importance for other taxa. Such knowledge is currently lacking for insects, which have long been regarded as the "little things that run the world". Even for ubiquitous insects, such as ants, which are of tremendous ecological significance, there is currently neither a reliable estimate of their total number on Earth nor of their abundance in particular biomes or habitats. We compile data on ground-dwelling and arboreal ants to obtain an empirical estimate of global ant abundance. Our analysis is based on 489 studies, spanning all continents, major biomes, and habitats. We conservatively estimate total abundance of ground-dwelling ants at over 3 × 10
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