Invasive species of ants will cost Australians more than $22bn if left to run rampant

 now in Australia a new report is due to be handed down into the spread and

threat of one of the world's most invasive species fire ants the ants are

thought to have entered the country in shipping containers from South America

about two decades ago they pose a threat to people and livestock  the  exparts says that 

 ants are small insects and the red imported fire

an originates in  South America and itis a species that's been spread around

the world in a variety of different waysbut particularly can be found in soil

for instance it's imported in one way oranother and um these quite tiny ants can

form quite large colonies and they are omnivores that is they eat a lot of

different things and um particularly they will pray on for example um

seabirds or tur LS which are of particular concern in some regions but

also a whole variety of other insects sothey can really change the communities

of species that might be in a particular area but they also make changes to the

soil ecosystems too and they have a very painful sting um so humans can also be

affected and in Australian's terms they

cost a lot of money I'm reading 22 billion by the 2040s in trying to combat them yes that's right right so it's

really important with any of these

so-called invas species that have been that are species been moved from one

part of the world to another by human activities and then they go on to have

some kind of impact the most important thing to do is to prevent their arrival

in the first place but once they do arrive management is really expensive

but actually the cost of inaction is   even greater so what are the options

that are available to tackle them and  Australia obviously spending a lot of

money on it but how can they they seem so small and so innocent and you know

but in fact they're causing all this Devastation so one of the advantages is

that because they have Nest so it it means that that you can control quite a

large number of them so there are a v ariety of different treatment options

some of the treatments involve sterilizing the queen for instance which

essentially then kills the colony but there can be other ways in which they

can be controlled through sort of baiting so the ants take back these

toxic baits to the nest but I think it's really important that people are aware

of these threats to biodiversity these invasive alien species and they play

important part in terms of surveillanceand monitoring keeping a lookout and um

reporting any sightings that they have as quickly as possible because any

action if it can take place as quickly as possible it's going to be more

effective than if the insects are left to um spread and to establish and

briefly does global warming contribute to this are they more likely to spread

because of the warming

climate certainly particularly insects they um will benefit many of them will

benefit from a warming climate and for example in the UK as the temperatures

are warming we're expecting more of these insects could Thrive Within These

in the UK where previously they would not have been able to um flourish

because the conditions just wouldn't have been right they could also change

their behavior a little bit when the  climate changes so for example drought

conditions can make them go more deep

into the soil and make them more

difficult to control that interaction

with climate change is really important

okay Helen Roy ologist at the UK Center

for Ecology and hydrology