Bertelsmeier Group News, from new publications, public outreach, press, to new members
We will organize a summer school on ‘Ant Ecology in an Era of Global Change’ in beautiful Arolla (Switzerland), 23-28 August 2026.
The dates have been chosen, so that international participants can join directly after the IUSSI conference in Freiburg (it’s only a couple of hours by train).
Olivia Bates has published a new review paper on studies predicting range changes of insects in Diversity and Distributions.
While introduced species were predicted to increase more frequently in range than native species, both increases and decreases were predicted in both groups, highlighting species-specific changes. However, large differences in study methodology hinder our ability to compare predicted responses across species. Predictions of future ranges may be driven by factors such as species’ physiology and geographic distribution. However, there is a large variety in predicted changes between insect species, and it is unknown to what extent these differences among species are due to the specific set of methodologies and data used to model the species’ distribution, given that individual studies vary greatly in regard to the methodologies and data used to make predictions.We therefore discuss these differences and how they may influence range predictions.
Link to paper here.
European colonialism has had a major impact on the spread of invasive insects. In a new paper, Aymeric Bonnamour (former PhD student in my team) has shown that introduced ants spread preferentially within the same empire as the countries of their native range. Colonial empires have ceased to influence invasions only after the 1960s…
check the new paper in Ecography out:
https://lnkd.in/emaDsMYQ
Cleo has been invited by Mathieu Vidard in a show on invasive species, discussing among other things her new book.
Link here.
Cleo was invited (21st of June 2025) on France Culture, discussing with Etienne Klein her new book on exotic animals.
Link here.
