Posted by Anna Probert @AFProbert

Ant-Man. The official superhero of 2015 and my PhD

I have a feeling that my beloved study group are going to be gaining quite a bit of interest this year. I would love to say that it is a result of some ground-breaking research I have conducted, but alas. The true reason why I think 2015 is The Year of the Ant, is the impending release (that’s 16^th July) of Marvel Studio’s Ant-Man. For those of you that are perhaps not on my level of Marvel fandom, Ant-Man is based on the comic of the same name, where the protagonist has the ability to shrink down to the size of an insect and has superhuman strength and agility. Although in my spare time I’m still trying to discover Pym Particles, my full time role involves being a PhD student here at the UoA and looking at assessing invasive species risk to native ecosystems, using ants as a model.

Unfortunately for our native environment, when it comes to exotic species arriving and establishing in New Zealand, we often let them slide by if they don’t have a perceived potential social or economic impact. As a result, we end up with exotic plant and animal species that become naturalised in the environment. How do they affect the environments in which they naturalise? Well in most circumstances, we don’t really know.

Out in the Hunua baiting for ants. Photo credit Luke McPake

Here in New Zealand we have 29 established exotic ant species (compared to only 11 native species) and very little understanding of how they are influencing the environments in which they live. The Argentine Ant is the species most people would have heard of, as it is a well-known invader worldwide, causing various negative impacts on the environments in which it invades. But what of the other 28 established exotic species we have in New Zealand? What are they doing?

I don’t have the answers… yet, but for my PhD I’m specifically going to be looking at the ways exotic ants influence the invertebrate community structure within different ecosystems, as well as investigating their role in altering ecosystem function. This will involve conducting different manipulative field trials over the upcoming spring/summer seasons – and I’m always on the lookout for field assistants, so let me know if you want to spend a day in nature out with me and the ants.

P.S. Marvel Studios, I am indeed open to sponsorship.

Anna Probert is a PhD student in the Centre for Biodiversity & Biosecurity, School of Biological Sciences, University of Auckland. She is using ants as a model to assess the risk posed by exotic invertebrates to native ecosystems. She is supervised by Margaret Stanley, Jacqueline Beggs, and Darren Ward.