People

Upon completing my undergraduate studies in University College London, I first joined the Arilab as an intern to map the global distribution of all known ant species in order to identify species richness on a global scale. Now, as a technician, I will continue with this project, while assisting lab members through micro-CT scanning and specimen curation. My interests lie in understanding the roles of historical and contemporary factors in controlling the spatial pattern of diversity, especially in tropical ecosystems. For my undergraduate thesis, I utilised GIS and spatial packages in R to map and model mangrove regrowth trajectories in abandoned aquaculture ponds in Singapore.

I am interested in understanding how networks of interactions work. What are the rules behind them, what features stabilize them, and what makes them resilient or vulnerable. Ideally studying cascading effects.

My interest in biodiversity research initially arose through an obsession with the documentation and photography of butterflies in the Western Ghats of India, where I grew up. Before starting my PhD at OIST, I did a master’s in Wildlife Biology and Conservation at NCBS, Bangalore. For my PhD thesis, I aim to study the genomic architecture of convergent evolution in a group of fascinating ants called Strumigenys. To this end, I take comparative genomics and transcriptomics approaches in conjunction with fieldwork to study the genomes and gene expression patterns in the independent evolutions of the ultrafast trap-jaw mandibles in Strumigenys ants.

Please visit my website to know more about me!

Growing up interacting with various kinds of animals and plants in a quaint Himalayan town of India, I’ve always been fascinated by the diversity of life around us. My curiosity about understanding the natural world, led me to pursue a master’s in wildlife biology and conservation at NCBS, Bengaluru. I studied thermal ecology and morphological plasticity in wing color characteristics of Pierid butterflies for my master’s thesis. After my master’s, I spent a year studying plasticity in reproductive traits of Himalayan oak trees in response to excessive anthropogenic thinning of these forests. These past projects shaped my current and long-term research interests, i.e., understanding the ecological and evolutionary causes and consequences of developmental plasticity in organisms. My approach to research is question oriented and I am most interested in answering fundamental questions in ecology and evolutionary biology.

I’m Lazzat, from Kazakhstan. Before entering OIST, I studied at Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan. For my undergraduate thesis I studied the evolution and epidemiology of HIV in Former Soviet Union countries. Here at OIST, during my rotations, I developed an interest in the evolutionary and ecological processes that shaped biodiversity. For my PhD I want to focus on biodiversity, biogeography and altitudinal adaptation of montane ants in Kazakhstan.

I am an Entomologist, and my research interests encompass systematics and taxonomy, biogeography, and morphological evolution of ants. For the last years, I worked with the ant genus Pheidole, focusing on its taxonomy and morphological evolution using a geometric morphometric framework to understand patterns of variation, integration, and modularity within and between its sub-castes. My current projects at Biodiversity and Biocomplexity Unit include comparative ant anatomy using 3D modeling, combined with geometric morphometrics and phylogenetic approaches to understand its morphological diversity and evolutionary history.

I am a technician working on molecular biology experiments in the Economo Unit, including metabarcoding of OKEON samples, invasive species detection, genomic library preparations, and others. I was born and raised in Fukuoka. I finished my master’s degree in Agricultural Science at Kyushu University, studying positive effects of functional food on metabolic diseases. I have previously worked at Ecology and Evolution Unit for 4 years and am experienced with DNA/RNA isolation from diverse organisms (fish, honeybee, mite, ant, and spider) and several library preparation methods for NGS platforms.

I learned methods of molecular biology during my PhD course and applied them later to study diverse biological processes: cell differentiation, cell electrogenicity, cell membrane fluidity regulation. Now I work on prediction bacteriophage genomes from metagenomic data. I hope to contribute to understanding of phage diversity at the genomic and community levels and their evolutionary relationships.

Presently doing my MSc at the University of Montpellier in France, I am interested in the stories that evolution tells us. Ants are among the rare organisms to have extended reproductive division labor beyond the multicellular organism. However, the degree of specialisation between reproductive and worker castes varies considerably between ant lineages and my research seeks to understand why. More precisely, what are the driving factors and the consequences of these major transitions both morphological and social.

Here in Arilab, by combining comparative anatomy using µ-CT, and phylogenetic analysis methods, I am trying to decipher the evolution of cheaper, anatomically simplified workers. This feature is shared by ants with the most advanced division of labor and is expected to mark a key innovation in the evolutionary history of ants.

Currently a PhD student in Toulouse (CRCA) combining ethology, ecology and modeling approaches, I have a particular interest in the mechanisms that govern collective behavior to solve a task.  From field to laboratory experiments until simulation, I am trying to understand how the biomechanic specificities of each ant in a group can help to solve a load carrying problem . For that I am currently working on a model that will combine the locomotion of the ants during a load transport and the properties of their legs muscles. Here in OIST, I want to improve my skills in ants morphology  (acquisition, segmentation)  to complete my model and expand  my research perspectives.

I am an entomologist focusing ants and other hymenopterans. The research areas I am most interested in are insect morphology and evolution, as well as systematics and taxonomy. The main goal of my research is to understand the phenotypic evolution of insects and how it shaped their past and present diversity.

I started my scientific work studying the morphology of female Strepsiptera in Jena, Germany. After this, I have mostly focused on the ant head in my master and PhD projects, trying to find out how head structures such as muscles and the mouthparts changed in the earliest stages of ant evolution. Especially important for this were some investigations on fossil ants, particularly stem group ants from the cretaceous period.

In my project as a postdoc here at OIST I want to expand my morphological research to the whole digestive system of ants. Using mostly µCT scan data, I want to study its macroevolution in relation to ant feeding preferences and other aspects of ecology and behavior.

The beauty of ants has led me to explore the forests of North and South America, East Africa, Russia, Japan, Indochina, Borneo, Sumatra, and Sulawesi. I obtained my Bachelor’s degree from Kangwon National University in Korea, and during my time there, I published several books on Korean ants. Prior to joining OIST, I worked as a research assistant at the National Institute of Biological Resources in Korea. My research interests revolve around the evolution of ant morphology. Currently, I am interested in the surprising morphological similarities between Neotropical fungus-growing ants and some Oriental hypogeic scavengers, such as Proatta and Dacatria. I do believe that such striking similarities within groups, which cannot be explained by convergent evolution, may shed new light on the factors influencing morphology and evolution. Additionally, I am interested in studying the adaptation of Aphaenogaster ants across East Asia, as well as the convergent evolution tendencies of ants in desert environments. Other research areas that interest me include estimating paleo-ecological niche of fossil ants, developing male-based taxonomic keys for ants, utilizing 3D modeling techniques, and species delimitation.

Before joining the Arilab as a research intern, I was a Masters student at the University of the Ryukyus (Okinawa) where I surveyed ant species composition across the Ryukyu Islands and analyzed the link between the environment and ant diversity. During my internship, I will conduct research on the geographic variation in the genus Rhopalomastix in the Ryukyu islands.