MonitAnt

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.

21.07.2025 10:08 — 👍 6    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 1

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

04.07.2025 13:04 — 👍 4    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0

@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?! 🐜

26.06.2025 18:20 — 👍 7    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0

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

14.06.2025 21:01 — 👍 6    🔁 1    💬 1    📌 0

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! 🪲

19.05.2025 06:57 — 👍 6    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0

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

12.05.2025 17:50 — 👍 6    🔁 3    💬 0    📌 0

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

13.05.2025 19:08 — 👍 9    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0

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

07.05.2025 13:49 — 👍 43    🔁 14    💬 2    📌 1

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? 🐜

11.04.2025 14:32 — 👍 6    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 2

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...

09.04.2025 08:43 — 👍 12    🔁 9    💬 0    📌 0

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

01.03.2025 17:39 — 👍 9    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0

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

04.02.2025 17:09 — 👍 9    🔁 1    💬 1    📌 0

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. 🐜🌳

02.12.2024 13:47 — 👍 12    🔁 5    💬 0    📌 1