Andrew Suarez

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign | UIUC · Department of Animal Biology

Muscle fatigue can reduce performance potentially affecting an organism's fitness. However, some aspects of fatigue could be overcome by employing a latch-mediated spring actuated system (LaMSA) where muscle activity is decoupled from movement. We estimated the effects of muscle fatigue on different aspects of mandible performance in six species of...

Plants are often dispersal limited relying on passive or active agents to find suitable microhabitats for germination. Seeds of pioneer tree species, for example, require light gaps for growth but have short median dispersal distances and often do not provide a food reward to encourage animal dispersal. Zanthoxylum ekmanii seeds are frequently move...

Plants are often dispersal limited relying on passive or active agents to find suitable microhabitats for germination. Seeds of pioneer tree species, for example, require light gaps for growth but have short median dispersal distances and often do not provide a food reward to encourage animal dispersal. Zanthoxylum ekmanii seeds are frequently move...

Ants, an ecologically successful and numerically dominant group of animals, play key ecological roles as soil engineers, predators, nutrient recyclers, and regulators of plant growth and reproduction in most terrestrial ecosystems. Further, ants are widely used as bioindicators of the ecological impact of land use. We gathered information of ant sp...

Eusociality represents an extreme form of social behavior characterized by a reproductive division of labor. Eusociality necessarily evolved through kin selection, which requires interactions among related individuals. However, many eusocial taxa also show cooperation between non-kin groups, challenging the idea that cooperative actions should only...

Invasive species are a global threat to biodiversity, and understanding their history and biology is a major goal of invasion biology. Population‐genetic approaches allow insights into these features, as population structure is shaped by factors such as invasion history (number, origin, and age of introductions) and life‐history traits (e.g., matin...

Evolutionary innovations underlie the rise of diversity and complexity-the 2 long-term trends in the history of life. How does natural selection redesign multiple interacting parts to achieve a new emergent function? We investigated the evolution of a biomechanical innovation , the latch-spring mechanism of trap-jaw ants, to address 2 outstanding e...

Vol. 19(3) April 2021. PLoS Biol 19(3): ev19.i03. https://doi.org/10.1371/image.pbio.v19.i03

Many plants depend on animals for seed dispersal, and ants commonly fill this role. We examined whether heterogeneity in ant community composition among sites, between above‐ and belowground foraging guilds, or between seasons predicts observed variation in seed removal rates for 12 nonmyrmecochorous Neotropical pioneer tree species on Barro Colora...

Biological invasions are a leading cause of global change, yet their long‐term effects remain hard to predict. Invasive species can remain abundant for long periods of time, or exhibit population crashes that allow native communities to recover. The abundance and impact of non‐native species may also be closely tied to temporally variable habitat c...

Many plants depend on animals for seed dispersal, and ants commonly fill this role. We examined if heterogeneity in ant community composition among sites, between above-and below-ground foraging guilds, or between seasons predicts observed variation in seed removal rates for 12 nonmyrmecochorous Neotropical pioneer tree species on Barro Colorado Is...

1. Interspecific competition is a major structuring principle in ecological communities. Despite their prevalence, the outcome of competitive interactions is hard to predict, highly context‐dependent, and multiple factors can modulate such interactions. 2. We tested predictions concerning how competitive interactions are modified by anthropogenic h...

How do organisms balance different types of recognition errors when cues associated with desirable and undesirable individuals or resources overlap? This is a fundamental question of signal detection theory (SDT). As applied in sociobiology, SDT is not limited to a single context or animal taxon, therefore its application can span what may be consi...

We uncovered taxonomic diversity, country of origin and commodity type of intercepted ants at Taiwanese borders based on an 8 year database of 439 interception records. We found intercepted ants arrived predominantly via timber, a pattern likely reflecting the high domestic demand for foreign timber in Taiwan. The most frequently intercepted specie...

The myrmicine ant genus Solenopsis is species-rich, globally distributed, and is often a common and ecologically important faunal element of the leaf litter. The genus is also well-known for containing several widely distributed tramp species and some of the worst invasive species in the World (the Red Imported Fire Ant, S. invicta, and the Tropica...

The field of comparative biomechanics strives to understand the diversity of the biological world through the lens of physics. To accomplish this, researchers apply a variety of modelling approaches to explore the evolution of form and function ranging from basic lever models to intricate computer simulations. While advances in technology have allo...

Biological invasions are a form of global change threatening biodiversity, ecosystem stability, and human health, and cost government agencies billions of dollars in remediation and eradication programs. Attempts to eradicate introduced species are most successful when detection of newly established populations occurs early in the invasion process....

To better understand the evolutionary significance of symbiotic interactions in nature, microbiome studies can help to identify the ecological factors that may shape host-associated microbial communities. In this study we explored both 16S and 18S rRNA microbial communities of D. armigerum from both wild caught individuals collected in the Amazon a...

The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake. When filing the final publication details, we failed to include the following statement in our Acknowledgments paragraph: We thank the Almond Board of California for research funding.

Cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs) are the main components of the epicuticular wax layer that in many insects functions as a barrier against desiccation. CHCs also play many other roles, including serving as sex pheromones, kairomones, primer pheromones, and colony-, caste-, species- and sex-recognition signals. In insects, CHC profiles can vary dependi...

Synopsis Jumping is an important form of locomotion, and animals employ a variety of mechanisms to increase jump performance. While jumping is common in insects generally, the ability to jump is rare among ants. An exception is the Neotropical ant Gigantiops destructor (Fabricius 1804) which is well known for jumping to capture prey or escape threa...

We obtained 14,140 interception records of ants arriving in Australia between 1986 and 2010 to examine taxonomic and biogeographic patterns of invasion. We also evaluated how trade and transport data influenced interception rates, the identity of species being transported, the commerce most associated with the transport of ants, and which countries...

1. The characterisation of energy flow through communities is a primary goal of ecology. Furthermore, predator-prey interactions can influence both species abundance and community composition. The ant subfamily Ponerinae includes many predatory species that range from generalist insectivores to highly specialised hunters that target a single prey t...

Understanding the phylogeographic history of an invasive species may facilitate reconstructing the history and routes of its invasion. The longhorn crazy ant, Paratrechina longicornis, is a ubiquitous agricultural and household pest throughout much of the tropics and subtropics, but little is known about the history of its spread. Here, we examine...

Biological invasions can be influenced by trait variation in the invader, such as behavioural traits and ecological factors, such as variation in pathogen pressure. High-throughput nucleotide sequencing has increased our capacity to investigate the genomic basis of the functional changes associated with biological invasions. Here, we used RNA-seque...

Many organisms build nests which create unique microhabitats that are exploited by other animals. In turn, these nest colonizers may positively or negatively influence nest owners. Bird nests are known to harbor communities that include both harmful and possibly beneficial species. We quantified the nest arthropod communities of 10 bird species in...

What is the limit of animal speed and what mechanisms produce the fastest movements? More than natural history trivia, the answer provides key insight into the form-function relationship of musculoskeletal movement and can determine the outcome of predator-prey interactions. The fastest known animal movements belong to arthropods, including trap-ja...

Ants are abundant and ecologically dominant insects in most terrestrial communities. In subtropical ecosystems, there is a high turnover of species from the canopy to the top layers of the soil. Additionally, ant communities are often influenced by inter-specific competition. Collectively, these two processes (abiotic filtering and competition) mak...

Non‐equilibrium dynamics and non‐neutral processes, such as trait‐dependent dispersal, are often missing from quantitative island biogeography models despite their potential explanatory value. One of the most influential non‐equilibrium models is the taxon cycle, but it has been difficult to test its validity as a general biogeographical framework....

1.Once established in new areas, introduced species may exhibit changes in their biology due to phenotypic plasticity, novel selection pressures and genetic drift. Moreover, the introduction process itself has been hypothesised to act as a selective filter for traits that promote invasiveness. 2.We tested the hypothesis that behaviours thought to p...

High-speed power-amplification mechanisms are common throughout the animal kingdom. In ants, power-amplified trap-jaw mandibles have evolved independently at least four times, including once in the subfamily Ponerinae which contains the sister genera Odontomachus and Anochetus. In Odontomachus, mandible strikes have been relatively well described a...

Tropical rainforests are characterized by having high structural complexity, stratification, and species diversity. In Colombia, tropical rainforests are critically endangered with only 24% of their area remaining. Forest fragments are often valued based on the presence of vertebrate taxa despite that small habitat remnants may still harbor diverse...

Understanding patterns of species diversity rely on accurate taxonomy which can only be achieved by long-term natural history research and the use of complementary information to establish species boundaries among cryptic taxa. We used DNA bar-coding to characterize the ant diversity of Iguazú National Park (INP), a protected area of the Upper Para...

An understanding of why introduced species achieve ecological success in novel environments often requires information about the factors that limit the abundance of these taxa in their native ranges. Although numerous recent studies have evaluated the importance of natural enemies in this context, relatively few have examined how ecological success...

Trap-jaw ants are characterized by high-speed mandibles used for prey capture and defense. Power-amplified mandibles have independently evolved at least four times among ants, with each lineage using different structures as a latch, spring and trigger. We examined two species from the genus Myrmoteras (subfamily Formicinae), whose morphology is uni...

Biological invasions are a threat to global biodiversity and provide unique opportunities to study ecological processes. Population bottlenecks are a common feature of biological invasions and the severity of these bottlenecks is likely to be compounded as an invasive species spreads from initial invasion sites to additional locations. Despite exte...

What forces structure ecological assemblages? A key limitation to general insights about assemblage structure is the availability of data that are collected at a small spatial grain (local assemblages) and a large spatial extent (global coverage). Here, we present published and unpublished data from 51,388 ant abundance and occurrence records of mo...

Biological invasions are a threat to global biodiversity and provide unique opportunities to study ecological processes. Population bottlenecks are a common feature of biological invasions and the severity of these bottlenecks is likely to be compounded as an invasive species spreads from initial invasion sites to additional locations. Despite exte...

Body size is a key life-history trait influencing all aspects of an organism’s biology. Ants provide an interesting model for examining body-size variation because of the high degree of worker polymorphism seen in many taxa. We review worker-size variation in ants from the perspective of factors internal and external to the colony that may influenc...

The functions and compositions of symbiotic bacterial communities often correlate with host ecology. Yet cause-and-effect relationships, and the order of symbiont versus host change, remain unclear in the face of ancient symbioses and conserved host ecology. Several groups of ants exemplify this challenge, as their low-nitrogen diets and specialize...

Poor communication between academic researchers and wildlife managers limits conservation progress and innovation. As a result, input from overlapping fields, such as animal behaviour, is underused in conservation management despite its demonstrated utility as a conservation tool and countless papers advocating its use. Communication and collaborat...

Quantifying the long-term ecological impacts of urbanization requires high-quality historical records and similar re-surveys over time. We replicated a survey conducted in 1924-1926 by Marion R. Smith of house-infesting ants in Urbana, Illinois, to examine how the house-infesting ant fauna and its control measures have changed over 87 years. We com...

Ants in the genera Anochetus and Odontomachus belong to one of the largest clades in the subfamily Ponerinae, and are one of four lineages of ants possessing spring-loaded “trap-jaws.” Here we present results from the first global species-level molecular phylogenetic analysis of these trap-jaw ants, reconstructed from one mitochondrial, one ribosom...

An organism's morphology is constrained by its evolutionary history and the need to meet a variety of potentially competing functions. The ant genus Pheidole is the most species-rich ant genus and almost every species has a dimorphic worker caste (a few are trimorphic). This separation of workers into two developmentally distinct subcastes (smaller...

The exchange of rapid antennal strikes between individuals is a behavior exhibited by many social hymenopterans, largely in dominance contexts within the nest and in aggressive contexts towards non-nestmates. Despite being widely reported, the behavior itself has not been well described or compared between species for the majority of social insect...

The lipid mixture that coats the insect cuticle contains a number of chemical signals. Mate choice in solitary insects is mediated by sexually dimorphic cuticular chemistry, whereas in eusocial insects, these profiles provide information through which colony members are identified and the fertility status of individuals is assessed. Profiles of que...

Background: Ants are a key component of terrestrial ecosystems because they provide several ecological services such as seed dispersal, organic matter decomposition, and soil nutrient cycling. Here, we assess, through the generation and analysis of DNA barcodes, the diversity of ants of Iguazú National Park (INP) as part of a major project that aim...

A central goal of biology is to uncover the genetic basis for the origin of new phenotypes. A particularly effective approach is to examine the genomic architecture of species that have secondarily lost a phenotype with respect to their close relatives. In the eusocial Hymenoptera, queens and workers have divergent phenotypes that may be produced v...

Resource availability can determine an organism's investment strategies for growth and reproduction. When nutrients are limited, there are potential tradeoffs between investing into offspring number versus individual offspring size. In social insects, colony investment in offspring size and number may shift in response to colony needs and the avail...

We describe the ant fauna of Iguazú National Park (INP), a region of high biodiversity and endemism in northeastern Argentina that includes the southernmost protected area of the Atlantic Forest (AF). Ants were sampled over seven periods from 1998 to 2011 using a variety of techniques. We also surveyed museum collections and the scientific literatu...

We describe the ant fauna of Iguazu National Park (INP), a region of high biodiversity and endemism in northeastern Argentina that includes the southernmost protected area of the Atlantic Forest (AF). Ants were sampled over seven periods from 1998 to 2011 using a variety of techniques. We also surveyed museum collections and the scientific literatu...

Animals use a variety of escape mechanisms to increase the probability of surviving predatory attacks. Antipredator defenses can be elaborate, making their evolutionary origin unclear. Trap-jaw ants are known for their rapid and powerful predatory mandible strikes, and some species have been observed to direct those strikes at the substrate, thereb...

Identifying group members and individuals' status within a group are fundamental tasks in animal societies. For ants, this information is coded in the cuticular hydrocarbon profile. We manipulated profiles of the ant Odontomachus brunneus to examine whether the releaser and primer effects of fertility signals are dependent on chemical context. Fert...

Biological invasions are largely thought to be contemporary, having recently increased sharply in the wake of globalization. However, human commerce had already become global by the mid-16th century when the Spanish connected the New World with Europe and Asia via their Manila galleon and West Indies trade routes. We use genetic data to trace the g...

Early and accurate detection of invasive species is critical for successful management and eradication actions. Detection of non-native ants in particularly difficult because of their small size and overwhelming taxonomic diversity. Over 15,000 species of ants have been described, and more than 200 have established populations outside of their nati...

Ant‐mediated seed dispersal has evolved multiple times in many regions around the world, affecting plant distributions through both primary and secondary dispersal. Most research investigating the chemical cues associated with ant‐mediated seed dispersal has focused on dispersal of myrmecochourous plants. Myrmecochorous plants have food bodies call...

The cuticular hydrocarbon profile encodes information essential to ant colony organization: nestmate signals, sex cues, and individual fertility status. Understanding the chemical nature of these signals and how multiple signals are encoded within a single phenotype are crucial steps in understanding the evolution of eusociality. My studies of Nort...