The ant has spread from the buildings on the west
of the island into the central woodland areas and
the open ground of the tern colony in the north. In
2001, 70 ha of the island were occupied by the ant,
with the southern and eastern parts of the island
remaining ant free (Figure 2). By October 2002, the
ant had spread over the whole island. A significant
association was found between the numbers of
ants, distance from the sea and canopy cover
(Table 1; Figure 3). The effect of canopy cover
was observed in the activity data but could not be
accurately analysed in leaf litter data as the heat
from the lamps used in the Tullgren funnels killed
all crazy ant individuals collected (but did not have
any such effect on other taxa). The ant was only
observed during the middle of the day where
canopy cover exceeded 75%, although disturbance
or observations at other times revealed their presence
in all grid squares in 2002. Potential nest sites
were found to be uniformly distributed across the
island, with no association with areas of high or
low crazy ant abundance.