A phylogenomic approach to myrmecophytism dynamics: Myrmelachista ants and their plant associations
In his talk of December 12, 2018, Rodolfo Probst, who is doing his PhD under the supervision of Dr. Jack Longino at the University of Utah (USA), told us about his work studying the evolution of nesting patterns of ants in plants and how is the transition from the behavior of nesting in dead plants to alive ones, using the ant genus Myrmelachista as a model. For this, Rodolfo uses phylogenomic techniques to reconstruct the evolutionary history of these ants, whose southernmost distribution occurs in the Andean-Patagonian forests. His work also involves making a complete taxonomic revision of the genus.
