Fungi making zombie ants

I was always puzzled by the fungis growing out of ants in the tropics, as well as Microcoelia parasitize ant and before they kill their pray alter their behavior so that it is to the benefit of the parasite. In the case of fungi the spores have to be disseminated, in the case of the Microcoelia the entire and has to be placed so that the next sheep will eat the ant whilst it is browsing.

The story in PLoS One reported in Wired magazine is not just cool and explains mechanisms, but it is in a geeks journal.

Ant Meeting: Österreichisches Myrmekologentreffen

During this year, there will be several ant meetings which I will list once they are posted.
The first this year is the Österreichisches Myrmekologentreffen
Montag, 7. März 2011, 900 – 1700 Uhr
Fakultätszentrum für Biodiversität
Rennweg 14, 1030 Wien

It has the following program:
Programm
ab 9:00 Ankunft und Kaffee
10:00 Begrüßung Konrad Fiedler
10: 20 – 12:00 Myrmekologische Forschung in Österreich
und angrenzenden Regionen
10:20 ‐ 10:40 J. Chlumský, Veronika Jílková, P. Koutecký, M. Štech
Dispersal possibilities and adaptations for myrmecochory
in genus Melampyrum
10:40 ‐ 11:00 Melanie Tista
Preliminary results on macroecological patterns in European
ant communities
11:00 ‐ 11:20 Herbert Zettel, Daniela Magdalena Sorger
Schnappkiefer, Widerhaken, blaue Piraten und andere Merkwürdigkeiten –
die Philippinen, die Galápagos‐Inseln Asiens
11:20 ‐ 11:40 Line V. Ugelvig
Pathogen response in ant societies is influenced by geneticdiversity
11:40 ‐ 12:00 Veronika Jílkov, L. Matějíček, J. Frouz
Changes in the pH and other soil chemical parameters in soil
surrounding wood ant (Formica polyctena) nests
12:00 – 13:30 Mittagspause
13:30 – 13:50 Florian M. Steiner, Birgit C. Schlick‐Steiner, Herbert Zettel
Die Entwicklung der Myrmecological News (vormals
Myrmecologische Nachrichten) zu einem international
beachteten Fachjournal
13: 50 – 15:10 Heimische Ameisenfauna
13:50 ‐ 14:10 Florian Glaser
Gefährdung und Schutz ostalpiner Ameisen und die
Verantwortlichkeit Österreichs – ein Aus‐ und Überblick
14:10 ‐ 14:30 Herbert C. Wagner
Zum faunistischen Stand der Ameisen Südösterreichs
14:30 ‐ 14:50 Erich Zormann
Artenvielfalt von Ameisen im Wienerwald
14:50 ‐ 15:10 Johann Ambach
Schwindende Vielfalt? – Eine Myrmekolologische
Bestandsaufnahme Oberösterreichs
15:10 ‐ 16:00 Kaffeepause
16:00 – 17:00 Heimische Ameisenfauna (Fortsetzung)
16:00 ‐ 16:20 Florian Glaser, Herbert C. Wagner
Die große Kerbameise (Formica exsecta) – Insekt des Jahres 2011
16:20 ‐ 16:40 Herbert C. Wagner
Ein neuer arboricoler Temnothorax für Österreich
16:40 ‐ 17:00 Melanie Tista
Sammelmethoden bei Ameisen – Ist eine Aufwandsreduktion möglich?

Please register before the end of Februrary 2011.
Mag. Melanie Tista
melanie.tista@univie.ac.at, 01/4277‐57411
www.univie.ac.at/animal_biodiversity

The meeting is organized by
Univ.‐Prof. Mag. Dr. Konrad Fiedler
Mag. Melanie Tista
Department für Biodiversität der Tiere
Universität Wien

Overwintering of Ants

When I visited Genady Dlussky in Moscow in 1985, he told me about all the ecological research going on Magadan in the Fareast of the former Sowjet-Union. He explained the mechanisms ant use to survive up to -30degree C. Finally, 2010, a comprehensive publication Overwintering and Cold-hardiness of Ants in the Northeast of Asia is a comprehensive book

summing up 30 years of studies on the ecology and physiology of ants under extreme northern conditions, virtually at the northern boundaris of their geographical distribution.

.
It has lavish illustrations and an account for each species studied.

It is a very helpful summary and ought be a read well beyond ant ecologists: It covers another edge of the ants that is really amazing, and in fact a lot of the results, especially the physiology, might apply too other invertebrates living under these harsh conditions.

The book is available from Pensoft Publishers, Sofia.

Myrmica monograph

In the coming days a huge monograph "Myrmica ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) of the Old World" will be published.

It is the first taxonomic review of the entire Old World fauna of the widespread temperate ant genus Myrmica that is famed for its interactions with many social parasites of high nature conservation interest, e.g. Large Blue butterflies (Phengaris spp.)
This about 800 pages monograph is more than a traditional taxonomic review, it gives the history of the taxonomic treatment of Myrmica, summarizes the current knowledge of the social biology and ecology of the genus, analyses the zoogeography of the various species and outlines the author’s views on the evolution and speciation within the genus.
The authors currently recognize 142 extant and 5 extinct species from the Old World and they provide Identification Keys to the species for each of seven geographic regions. This should make the Keys more user-friendly for non-specialists.
The locations of the type specimens are noted in the taxonomic catalogue, which is arranged alphabetically by species, as are the accurate line-drawings of every species. These illustrate features such as the shape and sculpture of the head and body, used in the identification keys. This arrangement makes it easy to find the data for any particular species.
There is a full list of all names ascribed to genus Myrmica and a table of synonyms from among the valid names is provided. The etymology of many of the names is interesting and provides insights to thoughts of the original authors as does the short biographies are made for all authors of more than one valid species of Myrmica.
The authors believe that there are many species of Myrmica yet to be discovered, particularly in the Indo-Oriental regions and in the southern mountains of Eurasia. This book provides the essential starting point for future studies.
Radchenko is one of Europe’s leading ant taxonomists and an expert on the ant fauna of the Palaearctic, while Elmes is an ecologist and eco-physiologist who has made a particular study of Myrmica ants over a 45 year career.

Both authors, Elmes and Radchenko have already extensively published on the subject, and it is very helpful to get all their widely scattered publications in one large monograph. In the old tradition of ant myrmecologists, the monograph is pretty costly and not open access and thus it will as such not be widely accessible. The challenge will be how to process 800 pages and make the descriptions online accessible at Plazi to share already available Myrmica treatments, and thus complete all the treatments for the Old World species in places like EOL or antweb.

The details of the publication are as follows:

Myrmica ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) of the Old World
Alexander G. Radchenko and Graham W. Elmes
ca 800 pages, 332 figs, 162 maps; hardcover, 165 x 235 mm.

Editor: Natura optima dux Foundation, Warsaw, Poland
Issue data: December 2010

Price: 150 EUR + postage (after 31 January 2011)

Orders:
Natura optima dux Foundation
Wilcza 64
00-679 Warszawa, Poland

orders@miiz.waw.pl
fax 48 22 629 63 02

Leaf cutter ants: the frenzy of publishing

If you like lavishly illustrated books on ants, you might want to consider Hölldobler and Wilson's latest oeuvre: The Leafcutter Ants: Civilization by Instinct. If you prefer those images moving - images that are even more impressive then you might want to get Thaler's movie Ameisen, die heimliche Weltmacht. One of the most impressive scene is the concrete mold of an entire attine nest in Southern Brazil. This book is an excerpt of a chapter on the authors book "The Superorganism: The Beauty, Elegance, and Strangeness of Insect Societies" that has been extended. Attines are at the very moment one of the most fascinating area in research well beyond ants that has generated a huge amount of insights, enabled mainly through DNA technologies that allows to study their fungi, their bacterias and other commensals living in this often huge system.
That it is hip is more than confirmed by the authors of the present book: Both of them are very eloquent writers but for my taste a bit too opportunistic by summing up ideas in a form, that are neither scientific nor popular in a general sense. The ideas presented get referenced in scientific writing later on, and not so much the original authors. This is a long history going back at least to the begin of the sociobiology debate and Bill Hamilton's genetic theory on social behavior.

A differnt kind of critique is in Mikheyev's review in Myrmecological News.

(...) a part of me wants the comprehensive fungus-gardener reference that will serve as the cornerstone of attine research, one that focuses on the cuttingedge discoveries and debates. But is it possible to write such a book today? Probably not, given the accelerating pace of research in this field, and the admittedly limited market niche. But perhaps books are no longer the best format for this sort of material. Rather, knowledge can be better summarized in wiki-based repositories built by the community, which can remain up to date and relevant continuously.
Although the current academic system does not reward individual scientists for investing into such endeavors, perhaps, as well-acknowledged masters, HÖLLDOBLER and WILSON could lead the way. What if the next version of The leafcutter ants would exist as a beautifully written community maintained online reference?

At the current time, there is no fame and money involved in Wiki's and too much of altruism required to run such a tool, that, without doubt will be the future; certainly not in Wilson's and Hölldobler's generation, may be not even in our, but the next generation of scientists.

[Photocredit: Thaler]

A new Asphinctopone and way of publishing

Peter Hawkes just published the description of a new species of Asphinctopone, A. pilosa. This is an interesting read and shows some ways on how to present taxonomic data.

The extensive description of only one specimen, the holotype, is followed by lavish, standard digital photography, and most importantly, distribution maps. It shows not just where the ant has been found, but where its congers have been found, pointing out that this find is important because it dramatically expands the distribution to the East of Africa. What I like though is that he added an additional map, the potential distribution map derived from a bioclimatic model (BIOCLIM). One might discuss, whether this approach can be applied to an entire genus (as done here) rather than a single species, but it shows clearly a way that would help to understand the distribution of species much better than how we ordinarily present our data.
The missing point is, that the data of this analyis is not available nor in the present publication nor GBIF.

How many specimens are good enough for a description?

Paknia and Radchencko describe in their recent paper two new Cataglyphis species from Iran: Cataglyphis pubescens and Cataglyphis stigmatus based samples from one and two locations respectively.

The descriptions are not accompanied by either DNA (Bar-)-Codes nor adequate images. The gray scale images do not live up to standards in the ant world (antweb.org), nor are they good enough to see the characters, nor are they available on existing antsites, not are the males described whose genitalia are the ultimate species level identification tool.

This study contributes to a fauna that is only known from literature references, including a compilation of names that one ought to believe the authors. That this could be done differently demonstrate to recent publications by McArthur and Heterick covering both Australia: The former with a lavishly illustrated compendium and key of the Camponotus of South Australia, the latter with a detailed account and key to the ants of Western Australia.

For anybody working in such an area, it would be of tremendous help, if those species would properly be documented.
I also would recommend to refrain from describing new species from one or two samples outside the context of a generic revision that provides the background why this species deserves to be described based on such poor data.

Of wood ants and bioindicators

Bernasconi et al concluded in their study of European wood ants that their result "represents a clear breakthrough for discriminating between F. lugubris and F. paralugubris and is likely to be helpful in large-scale biomonitoring".

The red wood ants are the dream candidate of the last fifty years for bio-control and monitoring, but they made it never to be actually used. Why do they remain a candidate? May be there is something behind, that they are nevertheless not as good and too complicated and little understand as all the many authors would like to have it. Citing Gösswald 1990 (G¨osswald, K. (1990) Die Waldameise. Band 2: Die Waldameise
in ¨Okosystem Wald, ihr Nutzen und ihre Hege. AULA-Verlag,
Wiesbaden.) seems to be rather ironic and making the point.

This study is also a part of the tradition of European taxonomists and related specialists to claim by solving a local problem to have found the solution to the complex taxonomy, better complex demography of wood ants. First, wood ants are not just lugubris and paralugubris, but include more species. Second, they both have an extensive range with quiet some variation, especially the widely distributed lugubris. Third, there is hybridization observed in several populations.

Why not do what Dlussky already 1967 in this revision of the genus suggested, that the entire populations ought be included? If this genus is so important, a large scale study should be conducted to clean up the mess and produce genetic markers that are based on the entire population of wood ants.

All 2009 ant taxonomy publications online

We are almost there where we want to be: To have an instant feed of new ant taxonomy publications into the Web, through linking the taxpub-converted treatmetents from EOL, Zoobank, HNS. We are not there, because we still get new publications, such as Hetericks "Ants of Western Australia". But this shows the sluggishness of our publication system. First, few people are aware of what is happening. Then it is published locally, and wouldn't there be connections, nobody besides few people in Western Australia and some ant colleagues would know about this.

[Sorry, I can't add link, because my system at the AMNH is down due to a snowstorm on the East coast of the US - we'll take care of this later]

Taxononomist's sloppiness - a solution

I have been quiet for a long time - it was a very creative phase during which we achieved a lot regarding making taxonomic descriptions online accessible on Plazi. See following blogs.
One new tool we created at Plazi in GoldenGATE, our mark-up tool, is to find all the citations in a publications, parse its element out which then allows to link all the references within the publications to those citations the author provides.

This helps to provide, if all will goes well, to have immediate access to the original literature from within the descriptions we post on plazi.

But it also is a fantastic editorial too, since it finds all the references that are not cited at the end.

For example, Seifert's revision in Myrmecological News of the Formica rufibarbis group has three omissions: Linnaeus 1758, Latreille 1798, and Seifert 1992.

Shameless self promotion.

A few years ago Donat invited me to contribute to this blog, as I was also helping with antbase.org itself. We haven't been the best at it and our posts have become thin and sparse. Apologies.

My own excuse is that I was finishing my PhD. But it is also true that, since this blog is primary associated with antbase.org, there were many topics or ideas that I felt were either to off-topic or too personal for me to write here. On the other hand, my dissertation work on ant morphology started to shift my interest from pure taxonomy to morphological evolution, cast differentiation and the role of the developmental process in the first two (i.e., Evo-Devo), all from the perspective of classical comparative anatomy.

I have therefore started my on blog called Archetype to explore some of my ideas on the subject, while at the same time to write about other silly and inconsequential topics that come to my mind.

100 Years of the Ant Collection at the MCZ

The ant collection at the Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ) turns 100 years this year.

The beginning of what has become a great legacy for ants studies is marked by the arrival at Harvard of William Morton Wheeler in the Fall of 1908 as the newly appointed professor of economic entomology[1]. Two crucial things have turned this collection into the most important ant collection in the World. On the one hand a century of steady activity by a succession of prominent myrmecologists at the MCZ. On the other, myrmecologists world-wide voting with their types: the MCZ has become one of the classical repository for type material when describing new ant taxa. In addition, credit should be given to Stefan Cover, the "guardian angel" of the ant collection over the last few decades.

A centennial celebration dinner was held on May 28, as part of a meeting organized by the EOL and CBOL that brought together ant specialist from around the globe (and your lucky blogger that happens to be in town). Guests were treated to a nice meal while listening to a brief history of the MCZ given by the current Museum director James Hanken and an entertaining account of the early days in American myrmecology through W. M. Wheeler's illustrious career given by Edward O. Wilson. All topped off with a special cake covered with tasty crawling chocolate ants.

Phil Ward and Jack Longino

E. O Wilson and Corrie Moreau

Steve Shattuck and Lloyd Davis

Fernando Fernandez and John Lattke

Mike Kaspari and Stefan Cover

Roberto Keller and Corrie Moreau

Happy centennial to the ant collection at the MCZ and we wish 100 years more!


References:
1. Evans, M.A., H.E. Evans. 1970. William Morton Wheeler, biologist. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. 363 pp.

How to Identify the Argentine Ant, Linepithema humile

Linepithema expert Alex Wild posted a succinct but thorough guide on how to identify the important Argentine ant:

The Argentine Ant (Linepithema humile), a small brown ant about 2-3mm long, is one of the world’s most damaging insects. This pernicious ant is spreading to warmer regions around the world from its natal habitat along South America’s Paraná River. Linepithema humile can drive native arthropods to extinction, instigating changes that ripple through ecosystems. In California, horned lizard populations plummet. In South Africa, plant reproduction is disrupted. Worldwide, the Argentine ant is a persistent house and crop pest. This is not a good ant.

More here.

Access to descriptions on Google

Whilst sitting at a very stimulating meeting at the Academia Sinica's National Digitization Program in Taipei and listening to talks about Web2.0, it occured to me that we are not actively making our valuable data accessible, since we don't make it easy for Google to find it. One trick, we were told, is to build RSS feeds.

And here is the result: The entire list of all the >5,600 descriptions served on plazi are now accessible through this RSS feed. For example, if you want the description of Probolomyrmex tani, you get it, including all the links to the original publications, the citation or even a Google map of its distribution. Try out on Google yourself!

44,614 ant names in the Hymenoptera Name Server

The ant community is in a very comfortable situation that there are two, if not three independent efforts to create a catalogue of the worlds ants. This helped us at antbase at least to cross-examine our online global ant name server with the recently published Bolton catalogue. We now have 44,614 names associated with ants, 12,359 are currently considered by the experts covering accepted species (i.e.g published record) . This includes all of them in Bolton's catalogue, and those which were different have been resolved through consulting our digital library. At least all the original descriptions are linked to the original publication.

Since January 2008, all new names are entered through Plazi's GoldenGate mark-up editor, that means that all the new names are linked to at least the original description exposed at plazi's SRS, as well as the original publication, if it is not copyrighted.

An example is the recently synonomized Pyramica aschnae.

What is clear from these exercises is that nobody is able to produce a DB that is complete and without errors, and in fact our different approaches allow each other to profit from each other, and right now update their own databases. Hopefully soon, this could go automatically through Webservices via Zoobank. This way we can continue not to talk to each other.

What is also clear is that the community should be a little bit more proactive and send error, missing or new taxon names and publications to any of the initiatives.

What is a bad taxonomic publication?

In a recent publication by Bolton et al., the authors make a bold statement that this is "one of the most inadequate papers that has ever been produced in ant taxonomy". Is it really?

Makhan's descriptions are so clear that they can simply synonymize them even with the bad images in the publication allow nevertheless identifying even misidentified species without having to resort to check the holotype.

I would think, despite the fact that these are probably synonyms, the descriptions are not so bad at all.

I would also argue, that such a paper is preferable to all the papers by the authors refer to, none of which is open access, and thus neither expert or any other person can make their own mind up without a substantial effort to get the publications, but has just believe them blindly.

It would be much better if the authors would have present images of all the types of the species the refer to, plus their descriptions. They could then make a proper argument and not build upon "authority".

Since we are running a project with Zootaxa, you can read the comments and the original descriptions here, and hopefully in the near future all the Pyramica descriptions mentioned will be online as well through plazi.org.

Now something different: shopping of course...

Surfing is dangerous. But this little online shop called "The Gigantiops Destructor Shop"* I just stumbled upon is my place for gifts, and I guess supports a PhD student as well.















* actually it should read "The Gigantiops Destructor Store" as Kari pointed out: I am impressed that about the lyrics involved in running such a cool business. Now I can't resist longer and need to get one of the apparels!

antbase.net's promotion of antbase.org...

In his recent contribution in SysTax, a German newsletter on German GBIF related activities (aka biodiversity databases that are hardly any longer funded), Martin Pfeiffer writes about www.antbase.net.

No, it is not about antbase.org - but when you click on the link, or in fact anywhere on the first page, the home page of antbase.org opens.

It is confusing, and to be honest, it was confusing from the begining, when Martin Pfeiffer publicized that he started antbase.de, later renamed antbase.net. When I pointed out that there is already an antbase.org he just replied he wasn't aware of it, but I guess, from my own experience, got hipped by such things as fishbase, flybase.... So much about Internet literacy.

But anyway, I just wanted to say thanks for this sort of unplanned PR.

Launch of Plazi.org

(For a formal release note see the biodivcontext blog)

Plazi.org has on February 20, 2008 officially been released. It is the logic next step towards making published taxonomic information in a semantic Web environment accessible.

The goal is to contribute towards the ambitious goal to make all the original and subsequent descriptions of our species (and indeed higher taxa as well) part of a global (taxonomic) knowledge commons: Everybody from anywhere shall have access to this invaluable data. Access will be provide both for human and machine, and everything will be done, to make use of LSIDs and to consult with the respective communities and specialists to not only provide content, but a vehicle that can be used to explore and promote new technologies.

The project has been partially funded through a binational US National Science Foundation/ German Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft digital library grant, and more recently by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF).

The power of the system lays in its ability to provide a dedicated XML editor allowing not only to mark-up the publications using the taxonomic literature specific TaxonX XML schema, but to enhance them with LSIDs for taxonomic names and bibliographic citations, and if available for specimens, CBOL sequences and more. As soon as ZooBank will be populated with the ant nomenclatorial data, links will be set up with the registry of zoological names. GoldenGate, the editor is modular and allows other communities to join the project and write applications allowing to retrieve LSID for their own taxa, such as fungi or plants.

This offers the unique chance to build up new catalogues using the mark-up process, where at the end all the names are registered with the respective databases, and all the descriptions are online accessible.

For ants, as of 2008, all the new ant systmatics publications will be marked up in Taxonx, the names added to the Hymenoptera Name Server where all the known names reside, and each of the descriptions will be accessible (e.g Probolomyrmex tani ) as full text, pdf or TaxonX documents. For copyrighted material, only the descriptions will be made accessible.

Depending on the resources, the publications can be marked up to very fine granularity, such that all the collecting events can be extracted (e.g. Linepithema humile). Older publications will be added as fast as our resources permit - or collaborators contribute.

All the descriptions are always linked to the original publications and a proper citation is provided to secure the origin of the data.

Anybody can contribute to the growth of this digital archive. The first training courses have been held in Brazil for spider and ant taxonomists. All the programs are open source, and the more people begin to use and help to develop, the more efficient we can populate the archive on Plazi.org

Currently, 3884 treatments are online avaialble, representing a large part of the Malagasy fauna, and more recent publications. Descriptions can be displayed in their original language.

TNT now freely available

TNT stands for "Tree analysis using New Technology". It is a program for phylogenetic analysis under parsimony (with very fast tree-searching algorithms), as well as extensive tree handling and diagnosis capabilities. It is a joint project by Pablo Goloboff, James Farris, and Kevin Nixon.

As of November 2007, the project was subsidized by the Willi Hennig Society, and thus the program is now made freely available, upon agreement on the terms of the License.

More here.