SEPTEMBER SEMINAR: Ants in the city – Influence of urbanization on arthropods using ants as bioindicator tools

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This month's seminar features Dr. Gema Trigos Peral (Museum and Institute of Zoology of Warsaw) and her work on use of ants as bioindicator tools to analyze different aspects of the urbanization in order to gain a better understanding of the urban environments.

Drastic changes in the habitat through urbanization has been described as a major threat against biodiversity. Notwithstanding, new studies have shown that the arthropods diversity in cities might be richer than expected. However, the effectiveness as refuge for the biodiversity varies among greeneries and the number of species present in a green patch will be strongly linked to the structure and complexity of this urban greeneries. Another effect of urbanization is changes in the abiotic factors - for example, temperatures are higher in urban areas (“urban heat island effect”). This scenario also affects arthropods at different level through the modification of their activity or development. Through the use of ants as bioidincator tools, we will analyse different aspects of the urbanization and their effect on arthropods in order to gain a better understanding of the urban environments.

Dr. Gema Trigos Peral is an assistant profesor at the Department of social and myrmecophilous insects in the Museum and Institute of Zoology (PAS) in Warsaw (Poland). Born in Campillos (Málaga, Spain), she studied Biology at the University of Córdoba (Spain) and later carried out my PhD studies under the program “Natural resources and sustainability” at this same university. Her PhD thesis focuses on the use of ant species as bioindicators to study the role of the urban greeneries in the global strategies of conservation. In the 2014, she moved to Poland were I started to work at my current working department. "It gave me the chance to keep studying the effect of urbanization in a wider range of habitat types. But it also allowed me to participate with my colleagues in a series of projects related with ant personality, vibroacoustics and forests ecology; a knowledge that greatly help to understand the social structure of the ant colonies and their relationship with the surrounding habitats." She is deeply in love with ants, and her main area of research focuses in urban ecology using ants as model species with the aim better understanding the function of urban ecosystems to find the balance between development and biodiversity conservation.

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