Alates are the winged reproductives of ant
colonies. A population of ant colonies release male and female alates,
which mate, leaving the female to fly off to found a new nest, and the
male to die and become ant food.
ALATES studies weekly flight
data from two years of Malaise traps on Barro Colorado Island, a seasonal
tropical rainforest in Panama. Working with John
Pickering of the University of Georgia, Don
Windsor at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, and Jack
Longino at Evergreen State College, our goal is to build the first
phenology for a tropical ant community, and explore the ultimate and proximate
causes of these courtship flights.
Our findings have thus far been summarized
in two papers:
