Douglas B. Booher

Pheidole parva Mayr (1865) is a small ubiquitous ant native to the Indomalayan region where it is considered a pest in healthcare facilities. This tramp ant was first reported outside its native range more than 100 years ago in the Seychelles Islands. Since then, it has been found in other areas of the Old World, where it was likely accidentally introduced via trading ships. In the 2000s, this ant was detected in Japan (2001), the Arabian Peninsula (2009), and recently in the Mediterranean island of Cyprus (2023) and Lebanon (2025). Here, we describe its first occurrence in North America, in the state of Florida where both Nearctic and Neotropical realms meet. Our findings are based on recent Pheidole parva specimens collected throughout the state, curated iNaturalist observations, Antweb data, and DNA barcoding based on the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI) gene. Among the 26 P. parva specimens analyzed from Florida, we found three different COI haplotypes. Two of them were also found in other introduced areas; however, one of the haplotypes has only been detected in a native population. The three haplotypes were distributed throughout the state with no clear geographical structure, consistent with multiple introductions and broad establishment of this non-native ant in Florida.

In order to quantify the abundance of red imported fire ants ( Solenopsis invicta Buren) and other dominant ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) in the urban/suburban areas of Miami, we set out two hotdog baits at each of 49 sample sites along 80 km of roads with a sample area of about 400 km ² . Red imported fire ants were found at only 8.2 % of sample sites and in 5.1 % of bait occurrences, ranking it in a tie for fourth or fifth place in the list of ants collected. The most common ants were Pheidole parva Mayr, Pheidole megacephala (Fabricius), and Pheidole subarmata Mayr, which were collected at 46.9 %, 18.4 %, and 12.2 % of sites, respectively. The majority of ants collected in this survey were exotic species, accounting for 93.6 % of species occurrences and 98 % of individuals. Dominant species of ants in the Miami area appear to have been dynamic over the last 50 years, several species have likely declined markedly (e.g. Solenopsis geminata (Fabricius) and S. invicta ) while two of the current dominant species, P. parva and P. subarmata, were unknown in Florida only 10 years ago.

It is clear from research on pollinator declines that some taxa are more vulnerable than others. The sooner these more sensitive species are detected, and the cause(s) contributing to their decline are identified, the better the chance of developing effective conservation plans. Using data from nine studies conducted in northern Georgia, U.S., we present evidence that Augochlora pura (Say) (Hymenoptera: Halictidae), once one of the most abundant of all forest bee species in our study area, is becoming less common as a proportion of all bees collected and has experienced a 70 % decline in abundance over the past 18 years (2007–2024) at long-term monitoring sites. We hypothesize that Brachyponera chinensis (Emery) (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), the Asian needle ant, is contributing to the decline of A. pura and possibly other bee species within its invaded range.

Although the ant genus Temnothorax is broadly distributed, extremely diverse, and contains multitudes of undescribed species, discovering new Temnothorax species in the eastern United States is rare due to the high concentration of taxonomic effort on this region. Here, we recognize and describe a new species that has consistently been misidentified in museum collections as Temnothorax ambiguus, a common inhabitant of acorn shells and leaf litter. Unlike T. ambiguus, T. caryaluteus sp. nov. nests primarily in arboreal microhabitats, especially within dead branches on live Carya and Quercus trees. We compare the morphology of T. caryaluteus sp. nov. against the congeners with similar appearance T. ambiguus and T. curvispinosus, and delineate diagnostic characters for T. caryaluteus sp. nov. Moreover, we provide an updated key to the Temnothorax species of the eastern United States.

Assessing and addressing biodiversity needs are of critical and time-sensitive importance, with the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework’s Global Taxonomy Initiative underscoring the need to build capacity in how we conceptualize biodiversity (Abrahamse et al. 2021). Species—as biological units—and their names are the backbone for the data integration and synthesis needed for biodiversity research and conservation decision-making (Grace et al. 2021). In integrating name sources for a single taxonomic group, barriers frequently limit linking species names across regional and global authoritative sources. In response to such challenges, we present a case study testing a Globally Integrated Structure of Taxonomy (GIST) to ensure the integration of taxonomy in biodiversity and conservation sciences. This framework characterizes the components enabling transparent association of species names through synonymy (alternate names or spellings), authorship, specimens, versions and timestamps, and taxonomic relationships in space and time. Taxonomy provides a critical link between biodiversity data types and databases. Efforts towards global taxonomic integration are confounded by insufficient connectivity between taxonomic assemblages, with implications for research, monitoring, and conservation practice (Christie et al. 2021, Jetz et al. 2019, McClure et al. 2020). In attempting to match multiple taxonomic groups across databases, we highlight current progress and remaining challenges to produce and use a GIST. We evaluate the standardized, comprehensive taxonomies of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, dragonflies and damselflies, butterflies, ants, plants, and crabs produced for the Map of Life project (Jetz et al. 2012), identifying which missing components impede their utility. We show that for terrestrial mammals, GIST standards are almost fulfilled, but for invertebrate taxa, such as butterflies, GIST standards are unmet, resulting in broken taxonomic links between aggregators of genetic, spatial, functional, and physical data. We find that even the comprehensive taxonomies we examine do not harmonize well with taxonomies of global genetics, phylogenetics, macroecology, and conservation databases. This is because current taxonomic data infrastructures on biodiversity respositories lack the necessary structural components, searchability, and name source transparency to fully integrate taxonomies, as different independently advancing data sources lack standard metadata practices and operable interfaces. The GIST components enable data linkage and provide clear sourcing and metadata, enabling taxonomic data accessibility, reuse, and interoperability. This structure can act as a step toward open and FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) data practice as it relates to taxon names (Wilkinson et al. 2016). Without transparent, integrated, accessible, and updated taxonomic information, macroecological inferences and conservation decisions for even charismatic groups are impeded.

Strumigenys is a globally distributed genus of mostly cryptic leaf-litter ants. In North America they are common throughout eastern deciduous forests but become increasingly rare to the west. Here I review the Strumigenys fauna of western North America north of the Mexico border including all states west of the eastern border of Texas. Six new native species with ranges entirely within this region are described: S. collinsae sp. nov., S. macgowni sp. nov., S. mendezi sp. nov., S. moreauviae sp. nov., S. lucky sp. nov., and S. subtilis sp. nov. Strumigenys ananeotes Longino & Booher 2019 is given a more thorough description, and S. alberti Forel 1893, a Neotropical species, is reported from the region for the first time. All new species bear clear morphological relationships with a native North American clade of “smithistrumiform” species. I include species accounts and provide an illustrated key for all species of this region.

Dated, geo‐referenced museum specimens are a rich data source for reconstructing species' distribution and abundance patterns. However, museum records are potentially biased towards over‐representation of rare species, and it is unclear whether museum records can be used to estimate relative abundance in the field. We assembled 17 coupled field and museum datasets to quantitatively compare relative abundance estimates with the Dirichlet distribution. Collectively, these datasets comprise 73,039 museum records and 1,405,316 field observations of 2,240 species. Although museum records of rare species overestimated relative abundance by 1‐fold to over 100‐fold (median study = 9.0), the relative abundance of species estimated from museum occurrence records was strongly correlated with relative abundance estimated from standardized field surveys (r² range of 0.10–0.91, median study = 0.43). These analyses provide a justification for estimating species relative abundance with carefully curated museum occurrence records, which may allow for the detection of temporal or spatial shifts in the rank ordering of common and rare species.

Evolutionary innovations underlie the rise of diversity and complexity—the 2 long-term trends in the history of life. How does natural selection redesign multiple interacting parts to achieve a new emergent function? We investigated the evolution of a biomechanical innovation, the latch-spring mechanism of trap-jaw ants, to address 2 outstanding evolutionary problems: how form and function change in a system during the evolution of new complex traits, and whether such innovations and the diversity they beget are repeatable in time and space. Using a new phylogenetic reconstruction of 470 species, and X-ray microtomography and high-speed videography of representative taxa, we found the trap-jaw mechanism evolved independently 7 to 10 times in a single ant genus (Strumigenys), resulting in the repeated evolution of diverse forms on different continents. The trap mechanism facilitates a 6 to 7 order of magnitude greater mandible acceleration relative to simpler ancestors, currently the fastest recorded acceleration of a resettable animal movement. We found that most morphological diversification occurred after evolution of latch-spring mechanisms, which evolved via minor realignments of mouthpart structures. This finding, whereby incremental changes in form lead to a change of function, followed by large morphological reorganization around the new function, provides a model for understanding the evolution of complex biomechanical traits, as well as insights into why such innovations often happen repeatedly.

In the United States are 37 endemic Strumigenys ant species belonging to a single temperate and recently radiated Nearctic clade formerly classified as Pyramica (non-trap jaw Strumigenys Smith1). We report the discovery of a new unrelated and morphologically distinct endemic Nearctic Strumigenys we described as Strumigenys superstes sp. nov. known only from a single queen collected in a pitfall trap at high altitude in northern Arizona. In comparing Strumigenys superstes sp. nov. morphology with queens of other closely related species, we showed Strumigenys superstes sp. nov. is the only temperate member of the otherwise tropical (Panamanian) clade of short-mandibled trap jaw species formerly belonging to the genus Glamyromyrmex (now forming the Strumigenys excisa species-group).