Fire ants have the ability to spread naturally and through human-assisted movement.
Modelling shows that without suppressing, containing and destroying fire ants in a staged, rolling treatment strategy, fire ants would have spread far and wide.
Fire ants are highly mobile and can travel long distances (up to 5km), allowing them to build nests in new areas and spread rapidly.
In Texas, between 1957 and 67, fire ants spread 48 km every year. Based on this, we estimate that without our work, fire ants could have spread as far west as Longreach, north to Townsville, and south to Albury by now.
Our extensive efforts to eradicate fire ants have slowed the pests’ spread through natural and human-assisted means to about 5 km per year, containing fire ants to an area of 600,000 hectares in Queensland.
We have also led or contributed to eradicating other fire ant incursions in other parts of Australia.