Fiji Ants- Investigators

Investigators

LINKS

Eli M. Sarnat

I am a graduate student in the Ward Lab at the University of California, Davis where I am researching the systematics, biogeography and conservation of the Fijian ant fauna for my doctoral dissertation. An ant systematist by training, my involvement with the Fijian ant fauna began in 2002 during my first visit to the islands.
It was not until 2005, however, that I decided to take on a taxonomic revision of the Fijian ant fauna for my doctoral dissertation. The plethora of specimens made available by recent NSF and WCS surveys, a recently published checklist of the Fiji ant fauna, and a longstanding fascination with ant biodiversity convinced me that the time was right to revise W. M. Mann's 1921 treatise on the ants of Fiji.

While a full revision of Fiji's ant fauna may well extend beyond my doctoral studies, I am focusing my efforts on describing elements of the fauna that are endemic to the archipelago. A review of the ten endemic species of Lordomyrma is the first installment of a series of small faunisitic revisions. Other genera whose Fijian species I am planning to review for my doctoral work include Pheidole, Camponotus and Cerapachys. For each of these groups, I am planning on delimitating species, developing identification guides, and inferring their biogeographic histories using phylogenetic systematics. The phylogenetic analysis of Lordomyrma has already begun, and an analysis of an endemic radiation of Pheidole is planned for Summer 2007. I am also providing the taxonomic expertise for a collaborative project with Evan Economo that is taking advantage of the structured design and geographic breadth of the inventory to examinine how the Fijian ant fauna has been assembled through space and time across the archipelago.

Although the task of revising an ant fauna as rich and remote as Fiji's is considerable, the project is made easier by the wide breadth of collaborative partners, the exquisite beauty of Fiji's landscapes, and the genuine warmth of Fiji's people. It is my hope that the systematic and ecological work produced by the project will serve a wide audience of scientists, government agencies and conservation organizations and promote the protection and appreciation of the Pacific's treasured biological diversity.

Evan P. Economo

I am an evolutionary ecologist currently pursuing a Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Austin (Tim Keitt's lab). Like many scientists in my field, my research seeks to document the diversity of life on Earth and understand the processes underlying the origins and maintenance of that diversity. My background is in quantitative ecology and macroecology, and in the past have worked on problems as disparate as allometric scaling theory and RNA evolution.

My current theoretical research involves building process-based models of biogeography, where I am focusing on integrating quantitative tools from landscape ecology (such as network theory) into traditional island biogeography models. This interest has led me to pursue a field project that would be related to this work, and I knew the discreteness of island faunas make them a natural laboratory for testing theory. This, plus a long term fascination with ants led me to pursue a field project on ants in the western Pacific.

Along the way I discovered that I really enjoy biodiversity inventory work, and am now engaged in completing a broad survey (with Eli Sarnat) of Fiji's ant fauna. While Eli is focused on taxonomic revision and systematics, I hope to develop an intensive and quantitatively rigorous community inventory from a series of sites on each major island in the archipelago. This dataset will be used for spatial analyses of ecological community controls, and empirical tests of community assembly, island biogeography, and diversification theory.

It is a pleasure to work in Fiji on this most interesting ant fauna. I look forward to contributing to a growing knowledge and interest in Fijian biodiversity.