Thomas Parmentier (UGhent)

Title: Ants and their associates as a model system to test host-symbiont network dynamics

Abstract: An extremely large number of organisms engage in symbiotic relationships with ants. Interestingly, these relationships are highly variable in terms of host-specificity and span the entire mutualism-antagonism continuum. In this talk, we present different types of network analyses focusing on ant-symbiont interactions. We argue that ant-symbiont communities are highly suitable to test a wide range of network hypotheses in terrestrial ecosystems.