The Red Menace Grows

The Red Army menace grows even as the government cuts the budget....

The total area in Taiwan affected by exotic red fire ants has increased by nearly 50 percent since 2003, but despite the growing infestation, the government budget for pest control was cut from last year’s NT$40 million (US$1.36 million) to NT$20 million this year.

Listed among the world’s top 100 most-invasive species, the ants, native to South America, were discovered in Taiwan in 2003 and have alarmed residents by quickly spreading through urban areas in Greater Taipei, Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Miaoli and Chiayi counties.

Fire ants, often called red ants, first appeared in Taiwan in 2003. According to a landmark genetic study, fire ants are spreading out of the US into the world along global trade routes. The US is in fact the origin for all subsequent transmissions, a total of eight separate waves. The Taiwan case was special: while other transmissions went directly from the southern US outward to places like New Zealand, the Taiwan-bound group of ants came to California before continuing on to Taiwan. The article above describes:

Biologists had certainly considered this United States–bridgehead scenario of invasions, Ross says, “but without data, it was anybody’s guess.” To track the invasions, an international research team analyzed ants from 2,144 colonies in a total of 75 places in 11 countries and looked at several kinds of genetic information, including dozens of DNA markers.

“Most studies don't come close to those numbers,” says Goodisman.

Ross explains that looking closely at fire ants in their native range in South America revealed 322 distinct genetic types. Only 11 of those types were found in the southern United States, including three that were very rare in the native range. Yet the populations from newly invaded territories had combinations of the three rare variants from those U.S. types, not the others left behind in South America. Additionally, the researchers ran computer models of how gene patterns in populations change as invaders bud off into new territories. The scenarios that fit the data best, alas, showed the United States as the source, Ross says.

This analysis raises the possibility that the rigors of invading the United States and then of moving on toward world domination have winnowed out weaklings and less invasive ants. Populations now erupting from the United States could be specially adapted as super-invaders, Ross says.

Fire ants like disturbed terrain, of which there is plenty on the overdeveloped Beautiful Island. When disturbed, they attack aggressively in swarms, and their venom can cause shock and even death in a small percentage of cases. Arriving in Chiayi and Taoyuan in 2003 in what appears to be two separate infestations, they quickly spread across Taoyuan county and are now entrenched in urban areas around the island but especially in the north. In 2006, to help root out the problem, Taiwan began to train beagles to smell out fire ant nests.

According to this 2009 paper, the core of the infestation in the north is in Taoyuan: Dayuan, Jhongli, Luiju, Taoyuan, Bade and Pingjhen, but it reaches well into Hsinchu county. The figure below gives a glimpse of their distribution:

Polygyne and monogyne refer to their social organization of nests that have multiple queens and single queens, respectively. Note that dead center of the infestation in the north is Taoyuan International Airport. The authors argue that the infestation in Chiayi came entirely from ants with two or more queens per social unit, and that the nests with single queens are a later development, implying that the island was infested twice, seemingly in the same year. They also say that while the infested area in Chiayi is basically stagnant, the one in the north is expanding at a constant rate. Brr.....
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Red Ants are Back

AFP reports that the Red Ant Army of Shih Ming-te is back in action.

Thousands of people rallied in the Taiwanese capital Sunday to mark the one-year anniversary of a campaign to oust President Chen Shui-bian over alleged corruption.

At least 1,000 riot police were deployed, but no clashes were reported in the candle-lit vigil, held on a square outside the presidential office.

Protesters donned red T-shirts and protest headbands, in a repeat of the huge demonstrations held a year ago when Chen refused to step down over allegations he misused funds intended for national affairs.

"The same place, the same old friends. As the same corrupt president is still there, your anger is totally understandable," democracy campaigner Shih Ming-teh, a former head of Chen's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), told the crowd.

But he assured his supporters that their persistence would pay off.

"Because of you, whoever is elected as the president in the future will not dare to be corrupt," said Shih, who kicked off the A-bian (Chen's nickname) Out drive last year with round-the-clock protests in front of the presidential office.

AFP, like most who have reported on the anti-Chen protests, appears disinclined to do any real digging on this event, so I suggest you read my backgrounder over at DailyKos on the sad decline of Shih Ming-te. None of the foreign media have reported that Shih switched to the pro-China side in 2001, going to work for a pro-Blue "think tank" and running in elections against the DPP. AFP also leaves out the inconvenient fact that Shih's followers are all Blues, as Shih himself admitted last year, that there are credible allegations that Shih is getting money from China (Shih is close friends with alleged Taiwan embezzler Chen Yu-hao, who has links to the PRC government), and so on. These reports make Shih appear saner than he is, since no foreign media report has included any of his wilder remarks, such as claiming that bags on his HQ doorstep were bombs sent by the DPP, or saying that his followers were unemployed pigs. They have also failed to report that his own followers sued him for financial irregularities. In other words, the foreign media, in presenting Shih's protest, have left out everything that might enable the reader to actually understand what's going on: the whole thing is a faux protest, a pan-Blue put up job. Instead, what is created is essentially a pro-Blue political construction.

The first time the Red Ants appeared I mused on the odd connections between once-powerful local politician James Soong and Shih Ming-teh. Soong spoke at the protests many times last year, and was frequently pictured sitting next to Shih. Apparently Shih was not bothered by Soong's conviction for tax evasion (with the largest fine ever handed out to major Taiwan political figure) and the fact that he was fingered in a French magazine for being the bagman on a US$400 million payoff in the Lafayette Frigate scandal. Last year, when Soong's party, the PFP, began putting pressure on the KMT about the stolen asset issue, suddenly, Shih began talking about the same thing.

Soong, a prominent pan Blue politician who once had a huge following and came just 3 points short of winning the Presidency in 2000, went into hiding after being shellacked in the Taipei mayoral elections in December of last year, where he got only 9% of the vote in the Bluest city in the country. With the Red Ants on the march again, think we'll be hearing from Soong soon?

[Taiwan] [Linda Arrigo] [KMT] [Democracy] [DPP] [PFP] [Shih Ming-deh/Shih Ming-te][Chen Shui-bian] [media] [New York Times]

Shih Ming-te to be Sued Over Red Ant Funds

Even Shih's dupes arrive at reality sooner or later, reports the Taipei Times....

The two men said that they will file a lawsuit against Shih with the Taipei Prosecutor's Office, charging fraud and breach of trust, when the number of people endorsing the move hits their "target number," which was not disclosed.

Expressing their dissatisfaction with Shih and displaying a roll of the more than 200 signatures that they collected, the pair accused Shih of unilaterally deciding to shut down a "red-clad house" near the Presidential Office and of calling his former supporters "homeless" and "villains."

The street demonstrations led by Shih ended late last year, after he collected millions of dollars in donations to finance the protests.

No response was available as of press time from Shih.

All of us who predicted that things would end with squabbles over cash are officially vindicated.

[Taiwan] [Shih Ming-deh/Shih Ming-te]