François Brassard

The latest issue of Oecologia features my photo for Oliveira et al. 2024 “Fire and ant interactions mediated by honeydew and extrafloral nectar in an australian tropical savanna”! If you would like to use some of my ant photos for your papers/journal covers please reach out:).

An old photo I took during my first field season with a macro lens - checks notes - 20 years ago, in May 2005. I hadn’t discovered flash diffusion yet. But it’s a rarely witnessed scene: Eciton burchellii army ant workers collective carry a massive male larva. Henri Pittier NP.

First time seeing a goblin ant (Orectognathus sp.). This is a queen found in Lamington national park, Qld 🇦🇺 (2025)

Glad that my photo made the journal cover for Ellen Rochelmeyer and her co-authors paper « The relative influences of long-term fire management and woody cover on termite abundance and activity in an Australian tropical savanna » Congrats Ellen and thanks for submitting my photo!

Two weeks left to apply!!

New paper out in Oecologia on ants and fire 🐜 🔥. In « Large-scale pyrodiversity is not needed to beget ant diversity in an Australian tropical savanna » we show that fire, but not pyrodiversity, is key to preserve ant diversity. Read more here: link.springer.com/article/10.100…

Arthropod Photo of the Week: February 26, 2025 Spider ants attack pony ant Leptomyrmex sp./Rhytidoponera sp. Hymenoptera: Formicidae By François Brassard (@ant_frank), Madang, Papua New Guinea #arthropodPOTW

Beyond excited to say my first PhD paper (and first first-author) is out today in @Nature 🤯. Taking a new approach to key innovations, we show rapidly gaining/losing complex teeth accelerates speciation in fishes. Look out for a longer thread soon…

Hey science folks, our research group had two postdocs and one lab technician fired due to the federal downsizing. If you need a molecular lab technician or a postdoc with experience in insect ecology please reach out. We would love to find these folks new jobs asap.

🆕Original Article: Competition for food and nesting resources in arboreal ant communities is higher in lowland than in mid-elevation rainforests. Hoenle, P. O., Schumacher, N. C., Fibich, P., Posman, A., Biul, M. & Klimes, P. myrmecologicalnews.org/cms/index.php?…

Like ancient ruins, the corpses of Ophiocordyceps-infected ants linger in the forest, eventually growing mosses

#1 Here are some photos of one of my favorite army ant action scenes, an intersection of two army ant emigrations. Army ants frequently relocate their colonies, and when they do so, they sometimes run into other army ant colonies that are doing the same.

New Guinea had several species with extremely elongated morphologies, such as this Strumigenys. I still wonder why 🤔. Near New Guinea Binatang Research Center, 🇵🇬 (2023). Thanks to @SchumacherNilsC for finding this great specimen!

Wow!

Exciting PhD opportunity! Just a few more days to apply

Everybody wants to look like a #Crematogaster #ant in the #Mediterranean, including in #Tunisia! 🇹🇳 Researchgate: tinyurl.com/2s3875n3 @TunAssoWildlife

I realized that there were no good pictures of this amazing species. And I took it personally.

The taxonomic biases in biodiversity data are growing over time. The amount of data we are collecting is growing, but the biases get bigger. We need to make a conscious effort to study the understudied! #SciComms #Science #Taxonomy image: Troudet et al 2018 @NaturePortfolio

Beetle in trouble. Litchfield National Park, NT 🇦🇺 2024

Wolf spider mom having a night snack. Darwin NT 🇦🇺 2024