Category: Research
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Breeding Systems of Fire Ants
I’m happy to share a new preprint on the breeding systems of fire ants >>> https://www.authorea.com/users/903412/articles/1278388-reproductive-competition-in-multiple-queen-fire-ant-colonies-insights-from-analyses-of-breeding-systems Understanding social group formation and structure is vital for understanding social evolution. The number of breeding individuals (breeders), their relatedness, and how reproduction is shared among the breeders comprise the “breeding system” of a species. This project started as…
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a JEB cover article
I contributed a cover image! Although I am not on the paper: https://academic.oup.com/jeb/article-abstract/38/3/333/7927855?redirectedFrom=fulltext Here is a quick view: Understanding how flexible traits (plasticity) and stable genetic differences (balanced polymorphisms) evolve is a major question in biology. Fire ant gynes (pre-reproductive queens) are a great system to study this because they show both genetic and environmental…
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Mating flight short film
Dr. Brendan Hunt suggested to me that I should videotape the mating flight behavior of fire ants since there are no good visual materials of it online. So I took out my camera on a collecting trip last year and made this short video documentary. Hope you like it! — Text in the video —…
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Lab rearing fire ants for research
Here is an illustrated guide to maintaining fire ant (S. invicta) colonies in the lab for research purposes. Assistants in the Ross lab or anyone working on fire ants is welcome to refer to this page. The knowledge here is taught by Dr. Kenneth Ross and his predecessors. I have also drawn from my own…
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Ant labs of NA
Who is studying social evolution of ants in America? (Mostly ant people here. Bee, wasp people are just too much… maybe add them later). (Featured Image credit: Alex Wild) Order randomly. Updated 2024. ROSS Lab, U Georgia http://www.caes.uga.edu/departments/entomology/people/faculty/ken-ross.html Social polymorphism, population genetics, chemical communication in fire ants HUNT Lab, U Georgia http://www.huntlab.uga.edu/index.html Bioinformatic & genomics…
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Ross lab roadmap
History of fire ant (Solenopsis invicta) research by Ross lab and collaborators. Summary slides © Dr. Kenneth Ross Ross and Fletcher (1985): Use allozyme at two loci for genetic structure. Foundress M queens singly inseminated. Average relatedness among female nestmates of M is 0.714, ~not different from 0.75. P queens also singly inseminated, not more…
Horace Zeng 