MonitAnt

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

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! 🐜🦖

Great discovery!

Great!

Sampling huge red wood ant mounds in the Belgian Ardennes

@monitant.bsky.social

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.

Large wood ant nest in a spruce forest, surrounded by bracken. Next to the nest is Professor Elva Robinson. The nest is taller than Elva.

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.

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.

Great team and great working day! @monitant.bsky.social

@monitant.bsky.social brings me back to the forest to enjoy these fascinating creatures—the Red Wood Ants! These ants act as natural pest control, serve as host species for many myrmecophiles, and are keystone organisms of forests. Yet, their existence is endangered. Aren’t they worth protecting?! 🐜

An specially scenic wood ant nest location.
Discovered while sampling their myrmecophile community 🕷️🪲 along elevation 🏔️
@monitant.bsky.social
@euracalpenv.bsky.social

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! 🪲

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

We installed camera traps to investigate the use of red wood ant nest mounds by 🐦‍⬛🦡🦌🐿️
Many thanks to Alberto Masoni!!
@monitant.bsky.social
@euracalpenv.bsky.social

A large wood ant, with a dull black gaster and head, and dull brown thorax, is on a pale stone background, and indicated by a blue arrow. Next to it a much smaller ant with a shiny back gaster and shiny brown head and thorax is indicated by a red arrow. The blue arrow at is the wood ant Formica lugubris and the red arrow at is the shining guest ant Formicoxenus nitidulus.

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

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? 🐜

MonitAnt: European-level monitoring strategy for mound-building Formica ants Formica rufa workers engaged in food sharing (trophallaxis) (© Elia Nalini) In the popular imagination, when we think about environmentally impactful ants, the first images that come to mind are of...

Happy to see that a small article Elia Nalini (from @euracalpenv.bsky.social ) and I wrote for the myrmecological news blog is now finally published! 🐜 We present our @monitant.bsky.social project and also our Citizen Science approach. 🔎

blog.myrmecologicalnews.org/2025/04/09/m...

Spring is coming to the Alps 🐜
@monitant.bsky.social

Today Alberto visited our lab! Lots of wood 🐜 research planed 💪
@monitant.bsky.social

As a first post, we can now announce that we have started our already successful Citizen Science project on INaturalist.

👉http://bit.ly/4i7Uh7w

Once joined, every observation can be assigned to this project (even retrospectively). So please share this and map out some ant mounds. 🐜🌳