Between the months of October and November, Associate Professor Dr. Rachelle Adams and Postdoctoral Researcher Dr. Livia Pires do Prado, from the Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology at the Museum of Biological Biodiversity at OSU, participated in a scientific conference and an expedition in the Amazon.

From October 22nd to 26th, 2023, the researchers attended the world's largest gathering of myrmecologists, the 'XXVI Simpósio de Mirmecologia: An International Ant Meeting.' For the first time, the meeting took place in the Amazonia (Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil), bringing together researchers from various regions of the world. Dr. Adams joined the roundtable titled ‘Ant Conservation and the IUCN Ant Specialist Group’, where she delivered the talk ‘Preservation of the Mercenary Ant’s Species Network’. Meanwhile, Dr. Prado participated in the roundtable titled ‘Back to Basics in the Era of -omics: A reappraisal of ant natural history’, where she presented her research on the evolution of reproductive strategies. Her talk was titled, ‘Natural History, Fieldwork and Reproductive Biology in Megalomyrmex Ants: Time to connect the dots’. PhD candidate Alissa Geisse and undergraduate researcher Juno Thomas were also invited to present their research but were unable to attend. Therefore, Dr Adams presented a poster for Geisse and Dr. Prado presented a second oral presentation for Thomas. Lastly, a research intern from Panama, Ana Raquel Martínez presented six months of field research conducted at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama.

After the ant meeting, the researchers embarked on an expedition in the Amazon with researchers from the Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi/MPEG (Pará, Brazil) and the Museu de Zoologia da Universidade de São Paulo/MZSP (São Paulo, Brazil). The expedition took place at the Ferreira Penna Scientific Station, a MPEG research station located in the Caxiuanã National Forest. Their aim was to collect and observe rare Megalomyrmex ants. Many discoveries were made related to the life history of Megalomyrmex species including finding a new species. The research team plans to continue their collaboration and publish at least two papers based on their work in the coming year. In addition, new collaborative relationships were formed with Brazilian researchers from both MPEG and MZSP. The team plans to seek joint funding and will likely exchange student researchers in the near future. 

This trip was made possible thanks to the support of The Ohio State University Office of Postdoctoral Affairs (OPA) and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation Postdoctoral Recruitment and Onboarding Supplement (OK-PROS) program, which supports postdoctoral scholars (GR129880 and AWD-113013), and the National Science Foundation: DEB #2146104 and IOS #2127521.