蚂蚁是大多数陆地生态系统中的重要组成部分。它们是重要的猎食者、腐尸处理者、种子食用传播者以及在现今社会中的重要食草动物。蚂蚁同时还与其它昆虫和植物息息相关，并作为生态工程师起到松土、营养再分配以及小规模的生态调节作用。
人类有记载和描述的蚁种已经达到15000种以上，200多种蚂蚁已经在其原始的栖息地之外建立了稳定的种群。其中的一小部分蚁族的分支已经成为具有高度破坏性的入侵者，包括：阿根廷蚂蚁（Linepithema humile）、大头蚂蚁（Pheidole megacephala）、疯狂蚂蚁（Anoplolepis gracilipes）、小火蚁（Wasmannia auropunctata）以及外来的红火蚁 (Solenopsis invicta)——它最近被列为世界上100种最具入侵性的物种之一(Lowe 2000)。此外，上述蚂蚁之中的两种蚂蚁（Linepithema humile和Solenopsis invicta）已经成为入侵物种之中被研究得最为深入和广泛的两种蚁种(Pyšek et al. 2008)。尽管入侵性蚁种会对城市和农业地区的经济造成重大损失，但最严重的后果也许还是生态方面。入侵性蚁种能够通过减少当地蚂蚁和其它节肢动物的多样性，对脊椎动物种群产生负面影响，干扰蚂蚁与植物的共生系统，进而大大地改变生态系统。
入侵性蚂蚁是由人类将它们带入新的环境的，之后它们会形成一支小型、独特的蚁种分支。大多数引入的蚂蚁会继续和人类保持密切的关系，并居住在新的经过人类改造的聚居地内，因此它们中的一些常常被称为流浪蚂蚁。尽管在其原始的栖息地之外建立种群的蚂蚁高达几百种之多，大多数研究只集中于其中几种蚂蚁的生物学研究。
下列是一些关于引入及入侵性蚂蚁的参考文献。
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