What are colony clusters?

I noticed I used the term "colony cluster" in the latest survey, so I wanted to define what the term means.

Although P. megacephala forms supercolonies, some of which may extend for thousands of kilometers, it is unlikely that they form a spatially contiguous and continuous population over entire land masses.

In this case, I wanted to use the term "colony cluster" to refer to a discrete population of a unicolonial species that is spatially separated more or less from other clusters within the supercolony. The separation may have come about because of natural or human-mediated dispersal of a propagule, or it may have been created by the partitioning of a larger community into separate communities due to encroachment by other species or other natural events.

Based on some studies, such colony clusters can remain active and viable for decades, something which is not possible for monogyne species.

A new page in the website is now dedicated to listing maps of P. megacephala clusters and the surrounding ant communities, which will hopefully be of help to researchers studying ant distribution and ecology.