04 October 2024
New paper about ant-fungus co-evolution in Science
As part of a team of international collaborators, we reconstructed a comprehensive phylogeny for the mutualistic fungi that are cultivated by fungus-growing ants. The new study infers the co-evolutionary dynamics of ants and fungi in detail and suggests that the ant-fungus mutualism emerged after the end-Cretaceous extinction.
The paper appeared in Science:
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adn7179
01 September 2024
Congratulations to Matt Prebus !!
As of September 1st, Matt Prebus, myrmecologist-extraordinaire, started his new job as Assistant Professor and Curator of the Ant Collection at Arizona State University's Natural History Collections. At ASU, Matt will study the diversity , taxonomy, and biology of the Sonoran Desert ants. Congratulations on landing this wonderful position, Matt!
30 July 2024
Evolution Meeting 2024 in Montréal
A small congregation of the Rabeling Lab ventured out to Canada to take part in the 3rd Joint Conference on Evolutionary Biology in Montréal. Daniela and I had a blast, met old friends and colleagues, and were able to enjoy amazing research in evolutionary biology that is happening around the globe. One of the outstanding talks was presented by Daniela!
12 July 2024
Fun in Lausanne!
The Rabeling Lab participated the Conference of the International Union for the Study of Social Insects. Daniela, Samyuktha, Dietrich, and Kyle gave beautiful presentations sharing results from their ongoing research projects. Lausanne was the perfect spot for a conference, and Cleo Bertelsmeier and her team did everything possible to turn this meeting into a huge success. Thank you for hosting a great social insect meeting!
02 July 2024
Inaugural Entomology Field Trip to the Vinschgau in South Tirol!
In close collaboration with Georg Petschenka (U. Hohenheim) and Robert Trusch (State Museum of Natural History Karsruhe), we launched a student excursion to the Vinschgau in South Tirol. The students (and we) had great fun hunting for insects all day and (some) all night long. What made this field trip special was the participation of a group of expert Lepidopterologists, who have been exploring this region for decades. They happily shared their entomological wisdom, and we all learned a lot about light trapping techniques, as well as butterfly mounting and identification. What an awesome field trip! We hope to able to offer this field course again next summer semester!
15 May 2024
First confirmed inquiline social parasite species in dolichoderine ants
Some research projects are like fine red wine... After years of intensive labor, Stefan Cover and I finally published the description of four new inquiline social parasite species in the odorous ants, the subfamily Dolichoderinae. These new species are from North America and interestingly, they exhibit different social parasitic life history strategies.
The paper appeared in ZooKeys:
https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1202.120478
KomBioTa News reported [in German]:
20 December 2023
Congratulations to Matt Prebus and our international team of collaborators! Having been able to conduct field research in the beautiful Sierra Nevada Mountains (see Matt's photo of Manica Meadow to the right) was already a treat, but re-discovering Manica parasitica was the icing on our cake! If you like to read the full story about this putative social parasite, which is itself parasitized by a tapeworm, please find a link to the paper in Biology Letters here:
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/epdf/10.1098/rsbl.2023.0399
16 June 2023
Congratulations to Dr. Kyle Gray!
Today Kyle successfully defended his doctoral dissertation at Arizona State University. Kyle gave a wonderful presentation about his research on the biogeography of socially parasitic ants and ants of the South Pacific island archipelago Vanuatu. Both his committee and the audience very impressed by Kyle's exciting and in-depth studies. Excellent work, Dr. Kyle! Congratulations on this wonderful achievement!!!
08 June 2023
Daniela Mera-Rodríguez publishes her paper "Biogeography and evolution of social parasitism in Australian Myrmecia bulldog ants revealed by phylogenomics" in Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution !
Daniela's interview with Myrmecological News : https://blog.myrmecologicalnews.org/2023/08/24/biogeography-and-evolution-of-social-parasitism-in-bulldog-ants/
Link to the paper : https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1055790323001252?via%3Dihub
KomBioTa News : https://kombiota.uni-hohenheim.de/en/news-detail?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=60602&cHash=84aa970042ebfa2f8f2d9b0369727fa4
04 April 2023
Kyle Gray wins the inaugural 2023 Mary Jane West -Eberhard Best Paper Award from the International Union for the Study of Social Insects (IUSSI) with his article "Global biogeography of ant social parasites: Exploring patterns and mechanisms of an inverse latitudinal diversity gradient" ( https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.14528 ).
Journal of Biogeography feature : https://journalofbiogeographynews.org/2023/02/13/ecr-feature-kyle-william-gray/
IUSSI : https://iussi.cyberbee.net/2023/04/2023-mary-jane-west-ebarhard-award/
KomBioTa News : https://kombiota.uni-hohenheim.de/en/news-detail?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=59476&cHash=12f8eb211836b6dac29b1183439e5f3d
