Resolving a high-resolution global map of ant biodiversity for basic biology and applied conservation

2018 Fiscal Year Annual Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 17K15180
• Research Institution: Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University
• Principal Investigator: ECONOMO Evan 沖縄科学技術大学院大学, 生物多様性・複雑性研究ユニット, 准教授 (30648978)
• Project Period (FY): 2017-04-01 – 2019-03-31
• Keywords: Biodiversity / Biogeography / Conservation / Informatics / Invasive species / Ants

Outline of Annual Research Achievements

The main project goal has been to improve our Global Ants Biodiversity Informatics (GABI) database to go beyond country level checklists and make a high-resolution global diversity map for ants, and compare to other taxonomic groups to ask questions about global biodiversity. To do this, we created a pipeline for georeferencing; determining geolocation for species with only text data, that matches or exceeds efforts for other taxa. Because ants, like all other invertebrates, are data-deficient, georeferencing to increase data density and accuracy has a big impact on our understanding. We constructed a pipeline including scripts that do lat-long checks, locality fixing string, geocode with google-based georeferencer, apply special google fixes, geocode with Geolocate, and feed to a map server. To date, we have georeferenced over 1 million species occurrence records increasing the size of the dataset to over 2 million georeferenced records. The second goal is to compare biodiversity patterns and biodiversity hotspots with other taxa and analyze large scale patterns. Already, a number of publications have appeared focused on comparing global patterns across taxa. This has notably included analyses of the macroscale of invasive species (Moser et al. PNAS), global diversity patterns (Barlow et al. Nature 2018) and the origins of latitudinal gradients (Economo et al. 2018, Nature Comms., Economo et al. 2019, Global Eco. Biog.) along with other studies. We have several other publications in preparation or in review on these topics and conservation related patterns as well.

Research Products

• [Journal Article] A morphological integration perspective on the evolution of dimorphism in sexes and social insect castes (2019)
  • Author(s): Friedman, N.R., Remes., V., Economo, E.P.
  • Journal Title: Integrative and Comparative Biology Volume: In Press Pages: In Press
  • Peer Reviewed / Open Access
• [Journal Article] Ready Species One: exploring the use of augmented reality to enhance systematic biology with a revision of Fijian Strumigenys (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) (2019)
  • Author(s): Sarnat, E.M., Hita Garcia, F., Dudley, K., Liu, C., Fischer, G., Economo, E.P
  • Journal Title: Insect Systematics and Diversity Volume: In Press Pages: In Press
  • Peer Reviewed / Open Access
• [Journal Article] A test of trophic and functional island biogeography theory with the avifauna of a continental archipelago (2019)
  • Author(s): Ross, S.R.P.-J., Friedman, N., Janicki, J., Economo, E.P.
  • Journal Title: Journal of Animal Ecology Volume: In Press Pages: In Press
  • Peer Reviewed / Open Access
• [Journal Article] A geometric approach to scaling individual distributions to macroecological patterns (2019)
  • Author(s): Takashina, N., Kusumoto, B., Kubota,Y., Economo, E.P.
  • Journal Title: Journal of Theoretical Biology Volume: 461 Pages: 170-188
  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtbi.2018.10.030
  • Peer Reviewed / Open Access
• [Journal Article] Evolution of the latitudinal diversity gradient in the hyperdiverse ant genus Pheidole (2019)
  • Author(s): Economo, E.P., Huang, J.P., Fischer, G., Sarnat, E.M., Janda, M., Narula, N., Guenard, B., Longino, J., Knowles, L.L.
  • Journal Title: Global Ecology and Biogeography Volume: 28 Pages: 456-470
  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.12867
  • Peer Reviewed / Open Access
• [Journal Article] Dimensions of ant diversity on a small tropical island (2018)
  • Author(s): Agavekar, G., Agashe, D., Economo, E.P.
  • Journal Title: Insect Conservation and Diversity Volume: 12 Pages: 161-171
  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/icad.12326
  • Peer Reviewed / Open Access
• [Journal Article] The roles of introgression and climate change in the rise to dominance of Acropora corals (2018)
  • Author(s): Mao, Y., Economo, E.P., Satoh, N.
  • Journal Title: Current Biology Volume: 28 Pages: 1-10
  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2018.08.061
  • Peer Reviewed / Open Access
• [Journal Article] Remoteness promotes biological invasions on islands worldwide (2018)
  • Author(s): Moser, D., Lenzer, B., Weigelt, P., Dawson, W., Kreft, H., Pergl, J., Pysek, P., van Kleunen, M., Winter, M., Capinha, C., Cassey, P., Dullinger, S., Economo, E.P., Garcia-Diaz, P., Guenard, B., Hofhansl, F., Mang, T., Seebens, H., Essl, F.
  • Journal Title: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Volume: 115 Pages: 9270-9275
  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1073
  • Peer Reviewed / Open Access
• [Journal Article] Skeletomuscular adaptations of head and legs of Melissotarsus ants for tunnelling through living wood (2018)
  • Author(s): Khalife, A., Keller, R.A., Billen, J., Hita Garcia, F., Economo, E.P., & Peeters, C.
  • Journal Title: Frontiers in Zoology 15: 30. Volume: 15 Pages: N/A
  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12983-018-0277-6
  • Peer Reviewed / Open Access
• [Journal Article] The future of hyperdiverse tropical ecosystems (2018)
  • Author(s): Barlow, J., Franca, F., Gardner, T.A., Hicks, C., Lennox, G., Berenguer, E., Castello, L., Economo, E.P., Ferreira, J., Guenard, B., Leal, C.G., Isaac, V., Lees, A., Parr, C., Wilson, S., Young, P., Graham, N.
  • Journal Title: Nature Volume: 559 Pages: 517-526
  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0301-1
  • Peer Reviewed / Open Access
• [Journal Article] Macroecology and macroevolution of the latitudinal diversity gradient in ants (2018)
  • Author(s): Economo, E.P., Narula, N., Friedman, N.R., Weiser, M.D., Guenard, B.
  • Journal Title: Nature Communications Volume: 9 Pages: N/A
  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-04218-4
  • Peer Reviewed / Open Access
• [Presentation] Regional and local determinants of island community assembly (2019)
  • Author(s): Agavekar, G., Agashe, D., Economo, Evan P.
  • Organizer: International Biogeography Society Biennial Meeting Malaga 2019
  • Int'l Joint Research
• [Presentation] Global biodiversity informatics for tracking the spread of introduced ant species (2019)
  • Author(s): Economo, Evan P.
  • Organizer: The 66th Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of Japan
  • Invited
• [Presentation] A phylogenomic and population genomic test of the taxon cycle model of island biogeography (2019)
  • Author(s): Economo, Evan P., Liu, C., Darwell, Clive T., Friedman, Nicholas R., Fischer, G., Sarnat, E., Mikheyev, A.
  • Organizer: International Biogeography Society Biennial Meeting Malaga 2019
  • Int'l Joint Research
• [Presentation] Evolution of a multifunctional trait: shared effects of feeding ecology and thermoregulation on beak morphology, with consequences for song evolution (2019)
  • Author(s): Friedman, Nicholas R., Ball, Jason R., Kasuga, H., Economo, Evan P., Remes, V.
  • Organizer: The 66th Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of Japan
• [Presentation] A morphological integration perspective on the evolution of dimorphism among sexes and social insect castes (2019)
  • Author(s): Friedman, Nicholas R., Remes, V., Economo, Evan P.
  • Organizer: Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology Annual Meeting
  • Int'l Joint Research
• [Presentation] Temporal Dynamics: Urbanisation degrades Okinawa's biotic soundscape (2019)
  • Author(s): Ross, Samuel RP-J. F., Nicholas R. F., Yoshimura, M., Donohue, I., Economo, Evan P.
  • Organizer: The 66th Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of Japan
• [Presentation] Disentangling Ecoacoustic Diversity and Stability (2019)
  • Author(s): Ross, Samuel RP-J., Friedman, Nicholas R., Yoshimura, M., Donohue, I., Economo, Evan P.
  • Organizer: Trinity College Dublin Botany/Zoology Postgraduate Symposium 2019
• [Presentation] Urbanisation erodes ecoacoustic diversity and stability in Okinawa, Japan (2019)
  • Author(s): Ross, Samuel R. P.-J., Friedman, Nicholas R., Yoshimura, M., Donohue, I., Economo, Evan P.
  • Organizer: 2nd Irish Ecological Association Ecology and Evolution Conference
  • Int'l Joint Research
• [Presentation] Next-generation phenomics and the renaissance of morphology in ant systematics (2018)
  • Author(s): Hita-Garcia, F., Friedman, Nicholas R., Khalife, A., Economo, Evan P.
  • Organizer: 2018 ESA, ESC, and ESBC Joint Annual Meeting (Entomology 2018)
  • Int'l Joint Research
• [Presentation] Form follows phylogeny? Insights into Crematogaster ant evolution by combining micro-CT and geometric morphometrics (2018)
  • Author(s): Katzke, J., Friedman, Nicholas R., Hita-Garcia, F., Fischer, G., Blaimer, B., Fisher, B., Economo, Evan P.
  • Organizer: 2018 ESA, ESC, and ESBC Joint Annual Meeting (Entomology 2018)
  • Int'l Joint Research
• [Presentation] Using ecoacoustics to monitor ecological stability along an urbanisation gradient in Okinawa, Japan (2018)
  • Author(s): Ross, Samuel R. P.-J., Friedman, Nicholas R., Yoshimura, M., Donohue, I., Economo, Evan P.
  • Organizer: British Ecological Society Annual Meeting 2018
  • Int'l Joint Research
• [Presentation] Extended Island Biogeography theory: multiple dimensions of biodiversity (2018)
  • Author(s): Ross, Samuel R. P.-J., Friedman, Nicholas R., Janicki, J., Economo, Evan P.
  • Organizer: Frontiers and Horizons in Ecology
  • Int'l Joint Research
• [Presentation] Using ecoacoustics to monitor ecological stability along an urbanisation gradient (2018)
  • Author(s): Ross, Samuel RP-J., Friedman, Nicholas R., Yoshimura, M., Donohue, I., Economo, Evan P.
  • Organizer: The 103rd Annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America
  • Int'l Joint Research
• [Presentation] Biodiversity research from local to global scales: new prospects for scientist-society collaboration in the era of big data (2018)
  • Author(s): Economo, Evan P.
  • Organizer: Taiwan Entomological Society Annual Meeting
  • Int'l Joint Research / Invited