When i started to look for sources for my research topic i thought that it would be easy to find a lot of good information on ants and their contribution to our environment and society. This proved to be harder than i expected, I started out by trying to find some sources on some of the schools databases. All of the results that i found  were either too broad or too specific and it was really hard trying to find a good middle ground.

After while of searching i was finally able to find a good source to use, this was a relief because this source had an extensive works cited that included several other helpful sources. this was a great catalyst toward writing my annotated and will probably be very helpful when i am finding information for the rest of my paper.

After i found these sources the rest of the annotated bibliography went pretty smoothly. i was able to create a free account on noodletools.com which formatted the sources into a works cited page and then i just highlighted major points in each article and summarized their purpose. This annotated  bibliography seems like it will be a pretty good aid while writing my final essay and will definitely be useful in starting the essay and organizing my thoughts. After finishing the bibliography i think i have a better idea of what my stance will be on.

This author discusses the way that large numbers of ants tend to come together into groups in order to move large objects. This process is called cooperative transport and is used by almost every species of ants on the planet. The authors of this journal argue that we can learn a lot from the efficiency of this collaboration and that ants are an underutilized resource when figuring out new and more efficient ways to conduct the four phases of cooperative transport which are decision, recruitment, organization, and transport. This author uses many sources in order to elaborate on the four stages of cooperative transport and support his argument regarding further research into how ants work as a group to complete larger tasks.

This article provides new insight regarding the way that the ant community comes together and works as a unit in order to accomplish larger tasks and raised the question of what else this allows them to do and how can some colonies or species be more efficient than others. I found this works cited page to be very useful and lead to many more relevant and helpful sources. This could come in handy while typing up my actual essay. This research could be useful in making my own points when talking about how ants can be useful by effecting more than just the environment by being an aid to science while studying group movements and cooperative transport.

The article 6 Reasons We Should Be Way More Scared Of Ants (http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-we-should-be-way-more-scared-ants/) by Daniel O’Brien talks about why ants are considered pests and although he says that most aunts help to balance out our ecosystem and have many useful jobs, certain species can be detrimental to our environment. The six reasons that O’Brien lists are that certain ants are not indigenous to our country, they are other animals that we do want, our poisons don’t work against them, they can live anywhere, they use us to transport themselves, which allows them to go almost anywhere in the world, and we have not developed any ways of stopping them from continuing to rapidly reproduce and continue to overpopulate.

This author raises a lot of very alarming and valid points. Since most ants look the same to the untrained eye would be hard to tell everyone to just stop killing ants especially with the Argentinian ant is one of the most wide spread and common ant. O’Brien also backs up his argument with a lot of other research, like when he sites Dr. Elissa Suhr in saying that “In Argentina … ant colonies span 10s of meters, are genetically diverse and highly aggressive towards one another, so population numbers never explode and they are no threat to other plants and animals.” This supports his argument that these species of ants are becoming over populated because there is nothing that can stop them from reproducing.

Although Daniel raises a lot of good points about the hazards of the Argentinian ant, these same points do not apply to most other species of ants that are indigenous to the United States and do help the ecosystem. It is unfair to persecute all species of ants just because of the harmful behavior of this species.

This article raises a lot of good questions and provides insight on a different perspective regarding ants. The biggest question is how can target the Argentinian Ant specifically in order to eliminate them from our country while keeping other species of Ants safe.

I am interested in the preservation of certain species of ants. This is an important topic because whether we realize it or not ants play a large role in our ecosystem by doing jobs like digging through the soil and leveling the nutrients within. The problem that I see with my topic is that people only see ants as pests, often destroying their homes. I would like to learn more about the ants way of life. There are thousands of different species of ants and all of them have evolved in order to thrive in certain environments. I think that we could learn a lot from observing their way of life. With so many species, many of them have different jobs, it would be interesting to find out just how much ants contribute to our lives as human beings. When you think about it the contributions that ants make to our environment are pretty obvious. Thy fertilize the soil, dig tunnels that help nutrients get to plants, pollinate plants, and help to carry many different types of seeds in order to spread the growth of vast vegetation.  This topic needs to be researched more because we could be inhibiting ants from doing their job and effecting the ecosystem that is acting around us.  Information on this topic can be found in several locations like websites such as national geographic or antark.net, I could also find information on a database like the gale research database.

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