Elva Robinson
@elvarobinson.bsky.social
Behavioural ecologist: Social organisation in ants etc; Field ecology, behavioural experiments, computational modelling; EDI, University of York; she/her
These wood ants are edge specialists... but not all edges are equal. Jacob Podesta used a decade of population expansion data to show that wood ants spread more quickly along certain edges, depending on the edge orientation. Currently available open access here:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
November 25, 2025 at 3:43 PM
These wood ants are edge specialists... but not all edges are equal. Jacob Podesta used a decade of population expansion data to show that wood ants spread more quickly along certain edges, depending on the edge orientation. Currently available open access here:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Look at the size of this wood ant nest! (Or perhaps I'm just smaller than you thought). This is a Northern Hairy Wood Ant nest in the Lake District, sampled by @melvinopolka.bsky.social and me for the @monitant.bsky.social project this year.
August 5, 2025 at 11:02 AM
Look at the size of this wood ant nest! (Or perhaps I'm just smaller than you thought). This is a Northern Hairy Wood Ant nest in the Lake District, sampled by @melvinopolka.bsky.social and me for the @monitant.bsky.social project this year.
Making the most of the warm weather to re-map the cooperative wood ant colony networks at the beautiful @nationaltrust.org.uk's Longshaw Estate. This was day 1 last week - two keen student volunteers getting their first experience of wood ants
June 20, 2025 at 11:53 AM
Making the most of the warm weather to re-map the cooperative wood ant colony networks at the beautiful @nationaltrust.org.uk's Longshaw Estate. This was day 1 last week - two keen student volunteers getting their first experience of wood ants
We also looked at how our UK Shining Guest Ants fit with other populations in Europe - but we found there wasn't much data to help understand this pattern. Fortunately the @monitant.bsky.social project will collect European-wide data to solve this problem. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/author... 3/5
May 7, 2025 at 1:50 PM
We also looked at how our UK Shining Guest Ants fit with other populations in Europe - but we found there wasn't much data to help understand this pattern. Fortunately the @monitant.bsky.social project will collect European-wide data to solve this problem. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/author... 3/5
In our study of Shining Guest Ants, we found that despite their tiny size, and having wingless males, Guest Ant populations are well-mixed within a site. This means that queens are successfully dispersing to other distant wood ant host nests within a site. 2/5 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/author...
May 7, 2025 at 1:50 PM
In our study of Shining Guest Ants, we found that despite their tiny size, and having wingless males, Guest Ant populations are well-mixed within a site. This means that queens are successfully dispersing to other distant wood ant host nests within a site. 2/5 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/author...
Did you know about these tiny shiny ants (red arrow) living with wood ants (blue arrow)? They are Shining Guest Ants (Formicoxenus) and we have recently discovered that a wood ant nest can be home to several genetically distinct colonies of these 'guests'! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/author... 1/5
May 7, 2025 at 1:50 PM
Did you know about these tiny shiny ants (red arrow) living with wood ants (blue arrow)? They are Shining Guest Ants (Formicoxenus) and we have recently discovered that a wood ant nest can be home to several genetically distinct colonies of these 'guests'! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/author... 1/5
What happens when a wood ant network is disrupted? New Open Access research shows that it depends on the resource. Networks are resilient to the loss of random resources, but a targetted removal of a key resource changes network structure 1/2 royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...
April 22, 2025 at 1:20 PM
What happens when a wood ant network is disrupted? New Open Access research shows that it depends on the resource. Networks are resilient to the loss of random resources, but a targetted removal of a key resource changes network structure 1/2 royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...
Interested in Social Insects? There’s still a week left to register for this hybrid meeting in London, December 16th: www.iussi.org/NWEurope/mee...
December 2, 2024 at 11:57 AM
Interested in Social Insects? There’s still a week left to register for this hybrid meeting in London, December 16th: www.iussi.org/NWEurope/mee...