their experimental exclusion from fruiting
displays increased fruit handling threefold to sixfold,
compounding indirect effects of ant invasion
on resources and habitat structure that influence
bird abundances and behaviours. This invasive
ant, whose high densities are sustained through
mutualism with introduced scale insects, rapidly
decreases fruit handling by endemic island birds
and may erode a key ecological function, seed
dispersal. Because most other invasive ant
species form expansive, high-density supercolonies
that depend in part on association with
hemipteran mutualists, the effects that we
report here on avian frugivore–plant associations
may emerge across their introduced ranges.