Kentucky Ant Project

Research Project

Kentucky has never had a comprehensive checklist of ant species. In fact, there is not even a species list for a single county within the Commonwealth. There are only 2 papers describing species in Kentucky, and both are Strumigenys species that have not really been encountered since. As far as ant research goes, it's a black hole the size of... well... Kentucky! This project aims to remedy that. I am creating keys to every genus in the state and keys to Kentucky ant genera. The ultimate goal for the project is to publish a book encouraging Kentuckians to integrate ants more into their culture and appreciate them for how essential they are to the region. 

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This project has taken on an additional dimension as I have learned how to teach 7 other students how to study ants on a professional level. Following a short foray into genetics research, I was allowed to design and lead an ant barcoding project at Morehead State University, which has equipped me with invaluable interpersonal skills such as delegating tasks, developing and modifying a scientific protocol (to extract and amplify ant mitochondrial DNA).

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Students in the project have learned how to study ants by specializing in a specific genus (or multiple in some cases) of ants to work on identifying, collecting, and ultimately presenting at the school's Celebration of Student Scholarship conference or at the Kentucky Academy of Sciences conference. This is particularly effective for studying ants because it has the benefit of dividing the overall workload for the project and provides neat, comprehensive groups for students to work and present on while still progressing the work of the overall project.

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So far, my team and I have found at least 13 new species records for the state. Two of them are likely new to science, two of them are rare, and one of them was surprising and unlikely to appear in the state of Kentucky but was identified using our barcoding efforts and later confirmed using morphology.