Terricolous ant species (mainly Lasius flavus) can build massive mounds with lifespans of several decades (there are classical studies of King in Journal of Ecology 1977). These mounds are found mainly in extensively managed (grazed!, not mown) meadows. These mounds form typical stable mosaic environmental heterogeneity that grassland plants have to cope with. I study (more exactly: my students study)

• dynamics of dominant species and succession at the sites
• underground rhizome structures that support the mounds (which rhizome/root parameters change when a species begins to be buried?)
• genetic structure of species colonizing the mounds (do they establish generatively on each mound independently?),
• genetic differentiation of species that occur both on and off the mounds (do mounds support clones with specific traits?)
• seed bank at the mounds (Lasius does not carry seeds, but many mounds have been transiently colonized by some other species)
• effects of history (do episodes of earlier colonization by other ant species - Formica spp., Tetramorium caespitum) have any long-lasting effect on the mound vegetation?)

I am really interested in contacts with people who study similar kinds of interactions; we currently have no idea on the role of plant-aphid-ant interactions, ofnfluence of parasitic fungi and nematodes, mycorrhiza etc.). See also my publications ant1 and the talk I gave in 2002.