New paper! We characterized the breeding system elements (number of breeders, relatedness, reproductive skew) of fire ant using data from a long-term rearing study combined with data from previous studies. Open access at: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

It seems… Biological science is becoming more and more data driven, and technology driven, instead of hypothesis driven, much less observation or curiosity driven.

A small subset of workers carrying the Sb supergene (genotype Bb) in a fire ant colony can shift the entire colony's social structure from single-queen to multiple queens, but how can they achieve this? See our latest paper on PNAS: doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

Glad to see my photo on a journal cover! (although I’m not on the study)

If you are at #SICB2025 and interested in "collective behavior and individual roles" of 🐜 and 🐛, don't miss our section tmr Jan 5th, 1:30-3 pm, International Salon 7~

New paper at G3! 🔥🐜Selfish supergenes strike again! We found that Sb social chromosomes were strongly overrepresented in haploid males in polygyne fire ant colonies, even more in adults than pupae, we then ran an assay to see if workers were involved... (1/2)