I am a behavioral ecologist and tropical biologist with a focus on social insects. My main study project focuses on the evolution of social wound care in ants. A unique behavior in which nestmates care for the wounds of injured individuals. To study this I use chemical analyses to understand the communication pathways (cuticular hydrocarbons and pheromones), video tracking of focal individuals for the behavioral aspect and microbiological assays for controlled infections of wounds and quantification of bacterial replication inside the host (qPCR). My main study subjects are Megaponera analis (sub-Saharan Africa), Eciton rapax (Neotropics) and Camponotus floridanus (North America).
