Unit News

A striking decline in ant biodiversity found on land converted to a rubber plantation in China.

Okinawan ant expert Mr. Hidetsune Takamine donates his valuable ant collection to OIST.

Comparisons of fossil and modern ant databases show where biodiversity changed and where it stayed the same.

Professor Evan Economo sequenced more than three hundred ant species to unravel the evolution of one globally dominant ant genus.

Béatrice Lecroq examines tiny organisms called foraminifera in one of the world’s deepest ocean trenches.

X-ray micro-CT provides OIST researchers with the ability to visualize and take detailed 3D measurements of tiny structures, like the brain of an ant.

A multinational project has led to the finding of not only one of the world’s rarest ant genus, but also the discovery of a new ant species.

Prof. Economo described a new ant species and named it ‘Pristomyrmex tsujii’ after University of Ryukyus Professor Kazuki Tsuji.

Ants specimens were collected over a two-week trip to the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Gardens. The species richness in Xishuangbanna is now being threatened by deforestation.

Prof. Evan Economo, who leads OIST’s Biodiversity and Biocomplexity Unit, was awarded the 2013 Presidential Award from the American Society of Naturalists (ASN).

For one OIST biologist, bringing up oversized one-celled animals from the deep ocean is on par with peering at the small sculptures in an ant’s head. At first glance these animals appear to have nothing in common, but she’s found their evolutionary stories share common themes.

The Biodiversity and Biocomplexity Unit, led by Evan Economo, uses classic tools of taxonomy—as well as genomic sequencing and computer modeling—to study how species evolve, move around, and adapt to their environments.