Doctoral Student
MING HUANG
Advisor:
Diana WheelerContact Info:
Marley 604
(520)621-5855
mhuang@ag.arizona.edu
Research and Interests:
My general areas of interest are the biology and behavioral ecology of Pheidole ants. I was immediately drawn to these wonderful creatures after reading about them in Bert Hölldobler and Edward O. Wilson’s The Ants (1990) and E. O. Wilson’s Pheidole in the New World: a Dominant, Hyperdiverse Ant Genus (2003). The vastly different habitats that various species can thrive in range from the dry hot deserts of Arizona to the colder forests of New England to the wet tropical rainforests of South America. Aside from the New World, Pheidole ants are also extremely abundant in many other regions of the world. Their amazing adaptability opened up my mind to a whole slew of questions regarding why these creatures are so diverse. Specifically, I am interested in the role juvenile hormone plays in the development of major workers in dimorphic species versus trimorphic species. I am equally interested in the behavioral and ecological mechanisms involved in maintaining multiple distinct major worker sizes in trimorphic species as compared to the production of only one major worker caste in dimorphic species. Is the extra major worker caste in trimorphic species maintained because of the need to maximize task efficiency in a habitat where food type, food accessibility, and competitor size are highly variable?
Publications:
- Huang, M.H. and A. Dornhaus. A meta-analysis of ant social parasitism: Host characteristics of different parasitism types and a test of Emery's rule. Ecological Entomology (Submitted)
- Huang, M.H. and T.D. Seeley (2003). Multiple unloadings by nectar foragers in honey bees: a matter of information improvement or crop fullness? Insectes Sociaux 50: 1-10.
- Huang, M.H. and M.C. Caillaud (2002). Experimental evidence for inbreeding avoidance by recognition of close kin in the pea aphid, Acyrthosiphon pisum (Homoptera: Sternorrhyncha). (Undergraduate Honors Thesis, Cornell University)
Illustration:
- Dahl, J and B. L. Peckarsky (2002) Induced morphological defenses in the wild: predator effects on a mayfly, Drunella coloradensis. Ecology 83:1620-1634. (Figure 1)
