Sorry this is late, I thought it was best now or never since I just took the test Wednesday.
http://www.usnews.com/science/articles/2011/02/28/us-probably-began-global-fire-ant-spread
Genetic evidence now spotlights the United States as the source of recent fire ant invasions in the rest of the world. The aggressive, stinging fire ants aren’t native to the United States but rather to a broad swath of South America. Yet the southern United States, invaded by fire ants in the 1930s, has sent off at least eight separate waves of fire ant invasions to other countries in recent years, says entomologist Kenneth Ross of the University of Georigia in Athens. A ninth invasion probably hopscotched from the South to California before hitting Taiwan. Basic fire ant biology gives the species ways of traveling. In the ants’ native range, they survive flooding by fleeing their nests with their young and gripping each other to create a living raft of ants that floats until the flood subsides. If they’re afloat for longer than they can survive without food, adults eat the young. Such a capacity for fasting allows fire ants to endure days or even weeks as international stowaways in any kind of cargo.
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