Matthew Prebus

<i>Confluaria podicipina</i> Most of the time, being infected with parasites is costly to the host in some way. But sometimes there might be circumstance when the presen...

Listen up brine shrimps - have you considered hosting tapeworm larvae?

Con: You turn bright red and is more likely to be eaten by a bird

Pro: You become more resistant to arsenic
#Invertebrate 🧪
dailyparasite.blogspot.com/2016/03/conf...

The broadly accepted formation of the Isthmus of Panama is ~3.5 million years ago, early closure has been suggested before: doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

BONUS: our results also show three lineages of the Pogonomyrmecini migrated from South America to Central America ~20 million years ago, which suggests a very, very early land bridge between the two continents.

We didn’t find much support for it. Instead, it looks like the ancestor of the crown Manica may have spanned the Holarctic.

Reconstruction of the historical biogeography of the ant tribes Myrmicini and Pogonomyrmecini.

Now that we have a handle on the topology of the Myrmicinae, we can also try to reconstruct the historical biogeography of Myrmicini+Pogonomyrmecini. Remember the “out of the Nearctic” hypothesis for Manica?

The main differences between alignments recovering this topology and alignments recovering alternate topologies had to do with compositional heterogeneity and how adequately it is modeled. As in the dorylines and leptanillines, compositional heterogeneity strikes again!

We found that most gene trees were concordant with Myrmicini+Pogonomyrmecini being sister to the remainder of the myrmicines.

Side note: if you have ever dabbled in phylogenetics, you are familiar with nucleotide substitution model choice as an early stage of phylogenetic inference. Model selection does not necessarily mean the model fits well, though. How to check substitution model adequacy? Posterior predictive checks.

The diversity of myrmicine tribe topologies recovered in various studies.

Did you know that myrmicine tribe relationships are controversial? Depending on the study, the Myrmicini and Pogonomyrmecini run the gamut relationship-wise. We looked at gene tree-species tree concordance and leveraged tests of substitution model adequacy to dissect the issue.

A phylogeny of the ant subfamily Myrmicinae, showing the broad effects of alternate point calibrations of one fossil species (on the left), and lineage-specific compositional heterogeneity (on the right). Inset shows proportions of gene trees supporting different myrmicine tribe topologies.

We compared the alternate fossil calibrations on the phylogeny of the myrmicines and found that indeed there are broad effects of fossil (mis)placement across inferred divergence dates. Good to know! Maybe we need to reevaluate our assumptions about ant fossil placements?

We found that †Manica andrannae was not closely related to any present-day species of Manica: it evolved much earlier. Also, if we forced the fossil to be closely related to extant lineages, it really distorted the phylogeny. Is fossil placement truly an issue?

To test the biogeographic hypothesis, we first needed a time-calibrated phylogeny. While the “Manica parasitica” paper was in review, paleoentomologists described the first fossil Manica species. We wanted to try to model the placement using morphometrics and molecules.

doi.org/10.3390/inse...

About “Manica parasitica”: once thought to be a social parasite of Manica bradleyi, this “species” is in fact tapeworm-infested M. bradleyi. The tapeworms induce changes that are convergent with the morphological syndrome observed across ant social parasites. Weird!

doi.org/10.1098/rsbl...

Equipped with the knowledge that "Manica parasitica" is not a species, wanted update the Manica phylogeny and test the “out of the Nearctic” hypothesis for the evolution of the genus.

A chronogram of the ant tribe Myrmicini, showing the disparity of divergence dates between alternate placements of the fossil species †Manica andrannae

🐜🐜🐜Fans of Myrmicinae! New paper in Syst Biol in collaboration with C. Rabeling🐜🐜🐜

doi.org/10.1093/sysb...

Wel, no surprise that Coyne used his blog (whyevolutionistrue) to argue with the SSE/SSB/ASN letter about definitions of sex. I'm not going to engage deeply with the letter here. Like any committee-drafted text it reflects compromises; I agree with some phrasing but some could have been clearer 1/N

One more shot of her before I have to let her go...

Physically located in the same building as SIRG on the Tempe campus, this is a satellite of the main ASU biocollections.

Additionally, this is a repository for voucher specimens from research done in the Social Insect Research Group (SIRG) at ASU.

One of my roles at Arizona State University is building the Social Insect Biodiversity Repository. My intention with this collection is to provide a taxonomic reference for the ants of southwestern U.S.A. and northwestern Mexico.

ecdysis.org/collections/...

My lab has a new paper in @insectessociaux.bsky.social. We found that alleculine beetle larvae consume most insect prey collected by Florida harvester ant workers, and occur in up to 63% of nests. 1/n

Phylogenomic Insights into the Evolution and Origin of Nematoda Abstract. The phylum Nematoda represents one of the most cosmopolitan and abundant metazoan groups on Earth. In this study, we reconstructed the phylogenom

Our paper on the phylogeny of Nematoda 🪱came out on the last day of 2024 in @systbiol.bsky.social. Well at least the link is, the PDF will come later...

What started off as a collaboration invitation to design UCE probes snowballed building a phylogeny of the whole phylum using BUSCOs...

Photograph of an open cabinet with insect specimen drawers. One door is closed and has close up images of beetle specimens. There is a "NEON Biorepository" label on the door.

*Be my new work supervisor!*
Arizona State University is hiring a new Director of the ASU Biocollections with a concurrent appointment as a tenured associate or full professor.
*I'd really love for this person to be an entomologist so ento friends, please share!*
apply.interfolio.com/159166

Emergent collective behavior evolves more rapidly than individual behavior among acorn ant species #pnas

www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...

Since you all seemed to enjoy the last video, here is more Ostracod-y goodness for #Crustmas :)

#nverts #BugSky #PondLife #UKWildlife #Ostracod #Freshwater

Taking Bluesky for a spin. New phd and new platform! I recently completed my masters in Montana and moved to Czech Republic to join the Insect Symbiosis Lab! Check out some of the beetles I’m working with - they’re crazy looking.

Beetle left, termite right.

bucek-lab.org/projects/Ale...

YouTube video by myrmecofourmis Termite Hunting Ants Raid Termite Nest

In Australia, some #ants are specialised #termite hunters. Their paralysing venom and extreme speed are essential to escape the sharp mandibles of soldier termites.

This was really difficult to film, their sting is very painful !

#insects #nature #science #macro #macrophotography #myrmecology

We’ve made a starter pack, to help you find people actively working with insect collections. Get in touch if you’d like to be added. 🦋

Entomological Collections Crew
go.bsky.app/C5VpWiw