During our trip to the Bavarian Forest, we found some really nice nests of Coptoformica exsecta, where I was finally able to try out my new diffuser. It was difficult to get even a single worker in focus, as they were moving so quickly.

There are still a few days left to apply for this Post-Doc in York, working on 'Engineering Ecosystem Resilience' using wood ants, drones and metabolomics! 🐜 🔬 🧪 🌲 🐜

Scientists have named a newly identified species of wasp after David Attenborough to honor the legendary naturalist and broadcaster’s 100th birthday. https://cnn.it/4wfsAkg

Ant-myrmecophile interaction: Formica sanguinea and the food begging rove beetle Dinarda dentata

Two weeks ago, we had our MonitAnt workshop with all project partners in the beautiful Bavarian Forest National Park. We even managed a short field trip, where everyone enjoyed being surrounded by wood ants and their myrmecophiles (see picture). 😉

Great to see these results finally published! Data Blanca (@bioivanezb.bsky.social) and I collected during my master’s research in Peruvian cacao agroforestry systems, where you can learn more about the favorite food of leafcutter ants and how herbivory damage strongly depends on distance! 🐜

This ant species is Pseudomyrmex boopis, which should be pronounced "BOOOOOOOP-is!" while bopping someone's nose, but taxonomists tell me to sit down and stop giggling and say "boo-OH-piss" like a grownup. So pronounce it however you want, I guess.

We are hiring! Interested in doing a PhD and excited about forest management, ecosystem services, simulation modeling and beta diversity? Come work with us @edfm-tum.bsky.social at @tum.de, full job ad here: cloud.edfm.ls.tum.de/index.php/s/...

#Biodiversität #Artenvielfalt

New paper on metacommunity dynamics out! 📃🍁 Led by Oliver Mitesser we show that habitat heterogeneity shifts communities from patch-dynamics toward mass effects and species sorting using beetles as focal taxon. 🐞😍 @betafor.bsky.social @cofeuniwue.bsky.social onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

A gallery of army ants from around the world.

Becoming a parent is much more detrimental to women’s academic careers than it is to men’s Read the full story: go.nature.com/4v4rxmQ

There is still some time to apply for a 3-years PhD position in my lab. If you want to learn how to conduct brain recordings in freely moving bees.

Pandora fungus reproductive cycle on Formica exsecta hosts for Csata, E., Erős, K., Szabó, Á. et al. Blade-running: an efficient yet simple behaviour to potentially combat summit disease in ants. BMC Ecol Evo (2026). doi.org/10.1186/s128... #scientificillustration #parasite

On Thursday, Gabriel Ziegler and I were invited to Berchtesgaden to talk about ants. Thank you again for the opportunity! There is currently an ant exhibition on the topic of wood ants with photos by Ingo Arndt, which is well worth seeing! I would have loved to stay longer in this beautiful setting.

🧪 AIM member @trigos-peral.bsky.social takes part in a new article analyzing how urbanization affects the food resources of aphid-tending ants such as Lasius niger.

We are hiring a postdoctoral researcher!🌲 🌳 🌍 📍Interested in boreal and temperate forest productivity and respiration? 💻 Like to work with large datasets, remote sensing and models? 🏔️ Love an alpine setting in a small town? Come and join us at KIT! Application details: t1p.de/qctj7

HIRING! We are looking for a new PhD student to work on insects in deadwood, effects of microclimate and land use. This is part of the Biodiversity Exploratories @bexplo.bsky.social and will use a new experiment using rain-out shelters in different regions of Germany. EU driver´s licence required.

#ElkeDagEenInsect Deze harige bosmier heeft een probleempje: wratjes! (niet zo'n ramp, maar wel een interessante interactie om waar te nemen) #Entomologie #Entomology🐜

Want to work on biodiversity in the Alps? ⛰️ We are offering several internship positions for the upcoming spring and summer in collaboration with the Biodiversity Monitoring South Tyrol 🕷️🦋🦇🐜🌼🦗🪱 biodiversity.eurac.edu/interns-want...

Productive days in České Budějovice with @jiri-tuma.bsky.social and @eliaguariento.bsky.social, focusing on all aspects of camera traps for the MonitAnt project. We even squeezed in a wonderful trip to Šumava National Park. @monitant.bsky.social

(1) Really happy to share our recent review "Speciation in ants: unlocking ant diversity to study speciation". 😀 doi.org/10.25849/myr... Ants are ecologically diverse and abundant organisms with strong potential to advance the study of speciation. Despite extensive research on their taxonomy, ...

Come and join us! Plants, mountains and the Tropics!

Come work with us! 🪲For our new project bAImo we are searching for a PhD researcher combining modelling 💻 with ecological expertise, aiming to improve interdisciplinary approaches to insect monitoring 🔎🐝 please visit tinyurl.com/bAImo-PhDoffer for more details. Looking forward to your application 🦗😊

Two positions in arthropod ecology in our institute, come work with us at Leuphana! 🪲🕷️🦗🐜

Cross-species cloning in ants 🐜 These two males belong to different species—but share the same mother. How? Why? To celebrate the print release of our last paper in this week’s @nature.com (issue 8084), here’s a thread summarizing the results. Why? Let’s dive in🧵👇 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

On Thantsgiving, the ants eat too much.

Our research group has an open PhD position! Please share widely! Possible topics include: Determinants of range limits Assembly of ecological networks (eg, plant-pollinator) The role of soil arthropods (eg, ants) in carbon storage Details: docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Oof…Takashi Komatsu, Taku Shimada, and Munetoshi Maruyama just published a photography book on “The Ant Guests”. The photos are stunning! The book is organized by geographical region, and text is in both Japanese and English. Check it out (and order it) here: roppon-ashi.jp/en/products/...

Wisdom, world’s oldest-known bird, returns to Midway Atoll! earthsky.org/earth/oldest...

It feels like Christmas has come early. After the @monitant.bsky.social team has been working busily in forests across the continent, samples from all over Europe are now arriving. Time to unwrap some data about red wood ants. 🐜🎁

Exciting MonitAnt meeting at the Natural History Museum, Brussels. Great discussions on fieldwork and ant ID, plus a rare glimpse of the museum after hours! 🐜🦖

🐜 Hormigas al descubierto: Nueva cita de un escarabajo mirmecófilo 📍Nuestro socio Amonio David Cuesta-Segura ha descubierto la presencia del #escarabajo Sternocoelis incisus en el nido de una #hormiga hospedadora nueva para esta especie: #Iberoformica subrufa.

1/3🧵Kicking off on #bugsky today & introducing Wood Wide Ants, aka WWA! We're researchers studying the #evolbio of the #ant Formica paralugubris and its kin, through #genomics, #SciComm & #CitizenScience📚🐜🧪🧬🖥️ #insects #mirmecology @sib.swiss @biogeneurope.bsky.social @ergabiodiv.bsky.social

A common type of ant in Europe breaks a fundamental rule in biology: its queens can produce male offspring that are a whole different species go.nature.com/4mOb5T9

Having a great time at the #gfoe2025 conference in Würzburg. Inspiring talks and great opportunities for scientific exchange 😊 @gfoesoc.bsky.social @reassemblynet.bsky.social @melvinopolka.bsky.social

We’re thrilled to announce that the GfÖ Annual Conference 2026 will be a joint event with the Nordic Society OIKOS (NSO), taking place in Odense, Denmark! 🇩🇰✨ See you on 14-17 Sep 2026! nordicsocietyoikos.glueup.com/event/nordic... #NSO2026 #gfoe2026

The first days at the @gfoesoc.bsky.social have already been amazing with a great show on Monday evening. I also had the opportunity to present our first results from the @monitant.bsky.social project on myrmecophilous diversity in wood ant nests. I'm already looking forward to the next few days.

Truly fascinating combination: the wonderful shots by @jan-haft.bsky.social beautifully accompanied by live music of "Orchester des Wandels" 🎶 - what a highlight at the #gfoe2025 Ice Breaker tonight! 🧊🥂 @gfoesoc.bsky.social

A truly amazing highlight of #gfoe2025 at @uni-wuerzburg.de yesterday evening: Jan Haft and members of the Orchestras of Change with their „Climate and Wilderness show“

After many hours of grinding and polishing, finally a complete worker ant ready for patination, assembly, and final polish 🛠️ She looks exhausted too 😅

Tiny but mighty! 🐜 From farming to engineering, ants display remarkable feats. Part of their success as a species is due to their ability to form complex, cooperative societies. 🧪🌏 Read more in @theconversation.com 

Look at the size of this wood ant nest! (Or perhaps I'm just smaller than you thought). This is a Northern Hairy Wood Ant nest in the Lake District, sampled by @melvinopolka.bsky.social and me for the @monitant.bsky.social project this year.

Congratulations to our colleague @sabinenooten.bsky.social from the Chemical Ecology group at @ecoresearchzoo3.bsky.social on receiving the Marcella Boveri Prize of the @uni-wuerzburg.de Biocenter, and on her great presentation of her work on insect #ecology and #biogeography

Invasive Tapinoma ants at Ingelheim station Germany are so determined they’re crossing rails to get food. Total takeover 😮

The last few weeks have been special as I was a guest of @elvarobinson.bsky.social in York for field research. Together with her and Igor Siedlecki, I travelled across the UK, successfully carrying out sampling for the @monitant.bsky.social. I'm excited to see the results of this data.

Last week we were out in Hunsrück National Park for some @monitant.bsky.social fieldwork. The area is truly fascinating, with extensive zones affected by bark beetles interspersed with old wood ant nests. Already looking forward to seeing the results, especially from the myrmecophile sampling! 🪲

Did you know about these tiny shiny ants (red arrow) living with wood ants (blue arrow)? They are Shining Guest Ants (Formicoxenus) and we have recently discovered that a wood ant nest can be home to several genetically distinct colonies of these 'guests'! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/author... 1/5

It's time to talk about social insects! 🐜🐝 This summer, the Central European section of IUSSI is holding its conferences in Szeged. Registration is already open! More info 👉🏼 ce-iussi-meeting-szeged2025.iussi.de

Over the past four days, the MonitAnt team has been meeting in Germany for a really productive workshop, even with new faces. A lot was discussed and prepared and now we are ready for another successful field season in 2025! Can you guess what we wanted to show in the last picture? 🐜