Ecology Lab

I conducted research for my Honors Senior Thesis Project in Dr. Nathan Sanders Laboratory. My project entailed gathering anthropomorphic data from ants obtained in different environmental conditions in Duke Forest, NC. I examined the effects of different nutritional sources (carbohydrate, lipid, or protein) upon both the taxonomic classification and size range within species.

I performed about 2,000 measurements of head widths and leg lenghts in order to provide a large enough sample size for data analysis purposes. I completed a thesis that concluded that time of day of forage directly correlates with ant body size. Overall, larger species of ants forage at night, and larger members of a species forage during the day.

My thesis can be found by following the link below.
The Effects of Resource Availability and Temperature on Ants