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Jonathan Shik is the group leader and works on the ecology, evolution, and physiology of insects from tropical rainforests to arid Mediterranean highlands. He innovates novel approaches to explore: (1) how social insect colonies work, (2) how the physiological traits of individual workers scale up to shape the performance of whole colonies, and (3) how these systems respond to environmental stress.
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Caio Leal Dutra is a postdoctoral researcher using genomic approaches to study the evolution of nutritional rewards in the fungal cultivars domesticated by the attine farming ants.
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Asta Rødsgaard Jørgensen is a PhD student studying the genetic signatures of crop domestication in the cultivars of fungus-farming ants. Asta's project is funded by a Semper Ardens Accelerate grant from the Carlsberg Foundation.
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Asger Roland Jensen is a MSc student using bioinformatic and culture-based approaches to explore the functions of microbial symbionts in the fungal cultivar of leafcutter ants
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Aoife O'Brien is a MSc student testing whether and how the quality of nutritional rewards produced by the fungus cultivar of leafcutter ants varies.
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Visitors
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Lucina Yuen (2021) was a BSc student from Imperial College London who joined the team for the summer and fall of 2021. Lucina studied the domesticated fungal cultivar of leafcutter ants. She performed in vitro experiments to study how the cultivar expresses nutritional reward structures.
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Hugo Merienne (2019) is a PhD student in the lab of Vincent Fourcassie at the University of Toulouse in France, and is working in the group as an ERASMUS Fellow during the fall of 2018. His thesis work is on the biomechanics of load transport in seed harvester ants. We will be doing a series of metabolic respirometry experiments to explore the energetic costs of carrying seeds relative to worker body size in Messor barbarus.
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Nathan Cyrille (2019) is a MSc student Paris-Sud University doing a comparative study on the digestive physiology of fungus-farming ants, in collaboration with Kenneth Halberg from the University of Copenhagen.
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Alumni
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Winnie Rytter (2015-2017) completed a Masters Degree in my lab studying the physiological basis for foraging behaviors in leafcutting ants. Her first chapter was recently published in Animal Behavior. Her second chapter, just accepted to Ecology, used stable isotopes to track the flow of nutrients through the complex farming systems of leafcutter ants.
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Christoffer Bergstedt (2015-2016) completed his Bachelors Thesis in my lab (co-supervised by Jes Pedersen) at the University of Copenhagen studying nutritional ecology of invasive ants.
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Ben Schantz Conlon is a postdoctoral researcher studying the adaptations that have enabled leafcutter ants to farm their fungal cultivar within and across ecologically diverse habitats
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Mads Wolter (2017-2019) has completed his masters thesis using stable isotopes to study the production ecology of fungus-farming ants. Mads was co-supervised by Anders Michelsen from the Section of Terrestrial Ecology at the University of Copenhagen.
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Birla Krabbe (2017-2019) performed her Bachelor's thesis studying the nutritional ecology of the ant Monomorium pharaonis to understand its success as an invasive species. Birla was co-supervised by Jes Pedersen (U. Copenhagen), and then worked as a research technician in my lab. She is now pursuing a Masters degree in Nature Management.
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Maria Scotwin ( 2017-2019) completed a bachelors thesis in my lab studying how division of labor shapes gardening behaviors across species of fungus-farming ants and then worked as a research technician in my lab.
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Pol Lannes Salvado (2018-2019) performed a Bachelors thesis project while on exchange from the University of Barcelona. Pol worked on the foraging ecology of fungus-farming ants.
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Sebastian Kofoed (2018-2019) performed a bachelors thesis studying the evolutionary ecology of male ants. Specifically, he is interested in understanding factors generating variation in sperm number across species and within colonies of fungus farming ants.
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Søren Krath Christensen (2019) worked as a lab technician overseeing the maintenance of ant colonies
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Aidan James (2019) performed a bachelors thesis project exploring the fundamental nutritional niche requirements of fungal symbionts of leafcutter ants. Aidan was a visiting student from Imperial College in London.
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Antonin Crumiere (2018-2020) was a postdoctoral researcher exploring the evolution and ecology of crop production in leafcutter ants. He is using a combination of field and laboratory experiments to explore how leafcutter ants and their domesticated fungal cultivars communicate their nutritional needs.
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David O'Tuama (2018-2019) performed his Masters degree using stable isotopes to study whether and how fungal cultivars process structural carbohydrates (e.g. cellulose). The results of this work are currently in Press in Biology Letters.
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Calum Stephenson (2018-2019) performed a Masters project using proteomics to explore the chemical composition of nutritional rewards produced by the fungal cultivar of leafcutter ants. Calum is currently pursuing a PhD at Washington University in the US.
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Enzo Langkilde [L] & Piet Nielsen [R] (2019) performed Bachelors projects developing a liquid media approach for measuring nutrient foraging in insect pathogenic fungi under co-supervision of Henrik de Fine Licht.
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Zsuzsanna Csontos (2018-2020) performed masters thesis research exploring how the fundamental nutritional niche breadth of fungal parasites influences the diversity of hosts they can infect. The project will focus on insect pathogenic fungal genus Metarhizium, more precisely, of the species M. acridum (specialist pathogen of locusts), as well as generalist insect-pathogenic fungi such as M. robertsii and M. anisopliae. Zsuzsanna is co-supervised by Professor Henrik de Fine Licht from the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences at the University of Copenhagen.
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Emil Petersen (2019-2020) performed a Masters thesis building a diet database to perform comparative analyses studying the realized nutritional niches of ant species spanning the phylogeny. We collaborated with Audrey Dussutour on this project.
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Marta Contreras Serrano (2019-2020) performed a Masters thesis testing hypotheses about physiological adaptations in fungal cultivars of leafcutter ants to extreme ecological conditions, like secondary metabolites in plant fragments.
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Celia Izquierdo worked as a scientific assistant caring for our lab colonies of fungus-farming ants
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August Hansen (2022-2023) performed a BSc thesis using nutritional analyses of insect prey organs to test whether and how nutrition mediates the infection timeline of insect-pathogenic fungi. August is co-supervised by Professor Henrik de Fine Licht from the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences at the University of Copenhagen.
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Julie Andersen (2020-2021) performed a Masters thesis project studying whether and how leafcutter ants that produce a fungal cultivar make decisions about how to process incoming resources (e.g. freshly cut leaves) to nutritionally provision their crops.
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Valentin Specht (2022) performed a Masters thesis project quantifying the realized nutritional niches of two neotropical ant species. He is nutritionally analyzing prey items sampled from the mandibles of laden foragers in Panama.
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Søren Henriksen (2021) performed a Bachelors thesis using eDNA approaches to reconstruct the foodwebs of tropical ant species.
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Paulina Chudzik (2021) performed a Bachelors thesis testing whether and how foraging decisions by fungus-farming ants are mediated by toxic plant secondary metabolites.
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Mads Ditlevsen (2022) performed a Bachelors thesis project using comparative analyses to explore the evolution of the nutritional rewards produced by the cultivars of fungus-farming ants
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Jakob Priess Nielsen (2022-2023) completed his Masters thesis partnering with Stephan Østerballe-Mourtizen to study the functional consequences of crop diversity in a fungus-farming ant species.
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Stephan Østerballe-Mouritzen (2022-2023) completed his Masters thesis partnering with Jakob Priess Nielsen to study the functional consequences of crop diversity in a fungus-farming ant species.
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Oscar Hess (2022-2023) completed his Bachelors thesis testing hypotheses about the evolution of thermal performance in cultivars of fungus-farming ants based on their ecology and evolutionary history.
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Mille Bolander (2020-2023) performed her Masters research working with Julie Andersen on a project to study whether and how leafcutter ants that produce a fungal cultivar make decisions about how to process incoming resources (e.g. freshly cut leaves) to nutritionally provision their crops. Mille then worked as a scientific assistant in the group until early 2023.
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Collaborators
Audrey Dussutour (University of Paul Sabbatier, Toulouse, France)
Jacobus Boomsma (University of Copenhagen)
Bill Wcislo (Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute)
Pepijn Kooij (Kew Gardens)
Rachelle Adams (Ohio State University)
Juan Santos (St. John's University)
David Donoso (Escuela Politecnica Nacional, Quito)
Xavier Arnan (CREAF Centre for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications)
Anders Michelsen (University of Copenhagen)
Henrik de Fine Licht (University of Copenhagen)
Jes Pedersen (University of Copenhagen)
Audrey Dussutour (University of Paul Sabbatier, Toulouse, France)
Jacobus Boomsma (University of Copenhagen)
Bill Wcislo (Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute)
Pepijn Kooij (Kew Gardens)
Rachelle Adams (Ohio State University)
Juan Santos (St. John's University)
David Donoso (Escuela Politecnica Nacional, Quito)
Xavier Arnan (CREAF Centre for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications)
Anders Michelsen (University of Copenhagen)
Henrik de Fine Licht (University of Copenhagen)
Jes Pedersen (University of Copenhagen)