Ant Invasion: Understanding and Examining Invasive Ant Species

Finding Genius Podcast

Richard Jacobs

Medicine, Health & Fitness

4.4 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 31 December 2020

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Bees as ant trackers? Turning off a species' immune or motor neuron system? Drones used for precision delivery of products? These are just a couple of the topics explored by ant specialist and researcher Dr. Ben Hoffman.

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Why ants are particularly good at becoming invasive, and what features tend to be shared by ants that become invasive
How bees have been trained to find and hover around ants for monitoring purposes, and the challenges posed by this strategy
How ants from one area of the world can easily end up in another part of the world, and what can be done to try to prevent this

Dr. Ben Hoffman is Principal Research Scientist at Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in Australia. He specializes in the study of ants—specifically how ants become invasive, what parts of biology contribute to their success in becoming invasive, and how they can be better managed.

Dr. Hoffman focuses his efforts on ongoing research in this regard, and on helping people understand and control invasive ant species. He explains that an 'invasive species' is one that is known to have impacts on people, environments and ecological systems, or agriculture.

One of the primary challenges in removing invasive ant species is doing so without contaminating or destroying the environment from which they're being removed. In part, this is challenging because general insecticides are used to kill invasive ant species, and these insecticides can produce unavoidable negative impacts on the surrounding area.

An even greater challenge, Dr. Hoffman explains, is simply detecting the presence of an invasive ant species. He explores ways of overcoming these challenges, and touches on many other topics along the way, including the ecological role of insects, ant colony structure and communication, the invasion process, and more.

For more information, visit https://people.csiro.au/H/B/Ben-Hoffmann.

Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK

Transcript

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0:00.0	Forget frequently asked questions common sense common knowledge or Google how about advice from a real genius
0:06.7	95% of people in any profession are good enough to be qualified and licensed 5% go and beyond. They become very good at what they do.
0:15.0	But only 0.1% are real Jesus.
0:18.2	Richard Jacobs has made it his life's mission to find them for you.
0:22.3	He hunts down and interviews geniuses in every field,
0:25.0	sleep science, cancer, stem cells, ketogenic diets, and more. Here come the geniuses.
0:30.3	This is the Finding Genius Podcast.
0:33.0	That is Richard Jacobs.
0:35.0	Hello, this is Richard Jacobs with the Finding Genius Podcast.
0:41.0	I have Dr. Ben Hoffman. He's in Australia. He's a principal
0:44.6	research scientist with CSIRO. Australia is against National Research
0:48.4	Agency part of Health and Biosecurity. He's in Darwin, Australia, Northern Territory. And we're going to talk about ants and
0:55.5	related topics to them. So, Ben, thanks for coming.
0:58.4	Thanks for having me. Yeah, so tell me about your research. What are you focusing on?
1:02.1	So these days, I predominantly focus on invasive species and how best we can manage them, but with a particular
1:08.2	focus on ants.
1:09.4	So I've always been specialized in ants, using them as biological indicators of the health of the environment and sustainable land use through to eradicating invasive species.
1:21.0	I'm really interested in all aspects of them, for example, how they become invasive in the first place, how they spread around the world, what parts of their biology contribute to their success, and what we can do to manage them better.
1:35.2	And essentially my work is everywhere in the world but where I live and I spend a lot of time
1:40.8	traveling around to different places helping other people control the invasive species that they have and improving our global understanding of managing the species.
1:51.0	Well, the answer, they're so small. How are they invasive anywhere unless they're
1:55.0	helped by other creatures? I mean, I guess they're flying ants, but you know, how
	...

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