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The Hidden Lives of Ants with Susanne Foitzik

AMSEcast

Release Date: 12/18/2024

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More Episodes
Alan, an ant enthusiast since childhood, is joined by Susanne Foitzik, author of Empire of Ants: The Hidden Worlds and Extraordinary Lives of Earth’s Tiny Conquerors. She explains that while queens start colonies and lay eggs, they don’t control the colony. Worker ants take on specialized roles like brood care and foraging, with older ants handling riskier tasks. Ants communicate through pheromones and use impressive navigation skills. Some species, like the Argentine and fire ants, thrive in new environments due to human transport, forming super colonies. Susanne’s current research focuses on how ants regulate labor division and how parasites impact their behavior and longevity.
 
 
Guest Bio
Dr. Susanne Foitzik is a professor of evolutionary biology, Vice Dean of the biology faculty, and Acting Director of the Institute of Organismic and Molecular Evolutionary Biology at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany. She has held academic positions at Ludwig Maximilian University, the University of Regensburg, and as a postdoctoral fellow at Colorado State University. With a doctoral degree in biology and a habilitation in zoology, Susanne is widely published and the author of Empire of Ants: The Hidden Worlds and Extraordinary Lives of Earth’s Tiny Conquerors, a captivating exploration of ant behavior and ecology.
 
 
 
Show Notes
  • (2:12) How many species of ants there are
  • (3:46) The role of ant queens and how they’re made
  • (5:55) The different functions ants take on in the colony
  • (9:01) How nests are created
  • (11:02) How ants communicate and navigate
  • (16:01) How certain ants have developed the ability to maintain livestock and how they do it
  • (19:01) Ants’ more aggressive behaviors
  • (22:34) What turns ants into “zombies”
  • (25:34) The social immune system of ants
  • (28:42) Invasive species of ants
  • (32:39) Understanding ant-tink
  • (34:31) What Susanne is working on now
 
 
Links Referenced