TIL "Big-Headed Ants" have completely altered parts of the savannah ecosystem less than 20 years

This is the best summary I could come up with:

At the Ol Pejeta Conservancy, a wildlife preserve in central Kenya, lions and cheetahs mingle with zebras and elephants across many miles of savannah – grasslands with "whistling thorn" acacia trees dotting the landscape here and there.

Then – an invasive ant disturbed their relationship, setting off a cascade of events that changed how elephants act and what lions eat, the effects of which are still playing out today.

Around twenty years ago, the invasive, big-headed ant appeared in the region, says Jacob Goheen, a professor in the Department of Zoology and Physiology at the University of Wyoming and co-author of the paper.

It's often hard to study interactions among multiple species," says Kaitlyn Gaynor, an assistant professor in the Department of Zoology at the University of British Columbia.

"What this study did, really elegantly, was follow a disturbance, step-by-step, through this complex web of interactions," they said, essentially providing scientific documentation for the butterfly effect, in this time and place.

The ants' impact extends beyond lions, for instance, to endangered black rhinos, which have relied on the now-dwindling acacia trees for food, Goheen, at the University of Wyoming, says.

The original article contains 823 words, the summary contains 190 words. Saved 77%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!