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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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Antonin Crumiere is 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.
Google Scholar Research Gate
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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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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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Julie Andersen is a Masters student working with Mille Bolander 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.
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Mille Bolander is a Masters student 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.
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Emil Petersen is a Masters student building a diet database to perform comparative analyses studying the realized nutritional niches of ant species spanning the phylogeny. We are collaborating with Audrey Dussutour on this project.
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Marta Contreras Serrano will begin a project testing hypotheses about physiological adaptations in fungal cultivars of leafcutter ants to extreme ecological conditions.
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Zsuzsanna Csontos is a masters student 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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Calum Stephenson is beginning a Masters project exploring the chemicals used by fungal symbionts to signal their nutritional requirements to their leafcutter ant farmers. Calum is co-supervised by Antonin Crumiere and Professor Birgitte Regenberg from the Section of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Copenhagen.
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Celia Izquierdo is a research assistant caring for our lab colonies of fungus-farming ants
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Visitors
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Lucina Yuen (2021) is 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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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 performed a Masters project student from the University of Barcelona who is working on the ecology and evolution of fungus-farming ant colonies.
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Sebastian Kofoed is working on 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. Sebastian is co-supervised by Jes Pedersen (U. Copenhagen).
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Søren Krath Christensen worked as a lab technician overseeing the maintenance of our ant colonies in Copenahgen
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Aidan James performed a bachelors thesis project exploring the fundamental nutritional niche requirements of fungal symbionts of leafcutter ants.
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David O'Tuama recently finished his Masters degree using stable isotopes to study whether and how fungal cultivars process structural carbohydrates (e.g. cellulose)
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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)