NOMADIC ADVENTURES
I'd like to start off by apologizing if I shook the life out of anyone with this background! Regardless of its massive mandibles and scrutinizing eyes, you have to admit, this is a really quality picture (not mine though!) :)
Moving on from this triggering event, I want to tell you more about my most recent involvement in research and one that I hope to continue to be a part of in the future!
WELL WHAT DO YOU KNOW, IT'S ANTS!
Once I finished my bioinformatics research with my wonderful mentor Dr. Susan Gurney, I became an undergraduate research assistant in the entomology and neuroanatomy lab under the supervision of Dr. Sean O'Donnell, known for the use of histological techniques to quantify the regions of neo-tropical army ant brains. Although a majority of my lab studies and work lies with neotropical army ants. our lab works with other study organisms as well, such as wasps, bees, termites, and most recently, spiders.
Since this past March, I've had opportunities to work on several different projects across the board that have allowed me to become familiar with these histological procedures and the ant husbandry involved. The one project that a majority of my time and commitment went to was determining brain resource allocation in neotropical army ants through histological analysis.
The goal of this comparative project was to determine how different environmental factors such as, location of the colony, lifestyle of the colony (above-ground vs. below-ground), and the surrounding habitat that could affect the predator-prey interactions that may persist, could impact resource allocation throughout the brain in over fifteen different species.
Respectively shown below, I've predominantly quantified ant brains belonging to Eciton dulcium, Eciton lucanoides, and Eciton vagans.
I also participated in a research project testing a human-safe and environmentally friendly pesticide, that Dr. O'Donnell and another associate professor in the department, Dr. Daniel Marenda developed in 2014, on Tetramorium and Camponotus ants.
I joined the lab knowing nothing about army ants or generally ants, for that matter, but I had the good fortune of receiving the guidance and support of my amazing lab mentor, Meghan Barrett, inside and outside the lab. I can confidently say that my passion to continue with entomological research was in many ways, fostered by her projected enthusiasm!
I'm not too sure how much I can really write about the details of the projects so I'll leave you with this video that gives you some idea of just how terrifying these army ants can get instead!
