The small industrious wood ant can do more than just build high nests in spruce forests. A newly published article in the journal Microbial Ecology reveals that ants combat a range of plant ...

The resin of conifer trees contains antibiotic chemicals and is harvested by the European wood ant to disinfect ... Leaf and grass cutter ants, as their names suggest, use leaf and grass cuttings ...

This leaves linear tunnels in line with the wood grain, whereas carpenter ants' damage can cut across the wood grain.