2021 MNH Biodiversity Seminar: Dr. David Emmanuel M. General
Channel: UPLB MNH
Date: 2021-06-09

Video documentation of the UPLB Museum of Natural History Biodiversity Seminar on "Working the night shift: surveying nocturnal ants, with the discovery of a new species of nocturnal arboreal ants" by Dr. David Emmanuel M. General on 09 June 2021.

SUMMARY OF TALK

Ants are ubiquitous elements of forest fauna and have existed for at least 100 million years. Given this long period of existence, ants have adapted to exploit all strata of all terrestrial habitats, except for the frigid poles. It is conceivable that they have also developed temporal specialization, where some ants are strictly diurnal or nocturnal or active day and night. We modified the typical transect collecting techniques to separate diurnal ants from nocturnal ants occupying the different strata of a forest ecosystem. Here he presented and discussed the preliminary findings from a single transect study. Results suggested that nocturnal arboreal ants are likely sources of new discoveries, such as a new ant species, Vombisidris freyae General and Buenavente, 2020. He also discussed the rarity of Vombisidris ants.