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Oral Presentation
Oral Presentation
Poster Display
Poster Display
Student Competition
Student Competition
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Ticketed Event

Student Poster Display Competition

Systematics, Evolution, and Biodiversity

Student Competition

Student

Undergrad Poster Competition: SysEB, General

Ant near-infrared reflectivity responds to climatic conditions

Monday, November 10, 2025
9:00 AM - 5:00 PM Pacific
Location: Exhibit Hall A-A1, OCC
Poster Display Student Competition
Solar heat challenges the survival and success of insects, and the capacity to reflect solar radiation can help insects survive in challenging conditions. We hypothesize that ant species found at higher elevations will exhibit reduced infrared reflectivity, and ants found at lower elevations, in hotter environments will be more reflective. These levels of reflectivity will most likely correlate with the species' need to regulate body temperature based on their elevation and environment. We will be focusing on the geological distribution of multiple ant species in a community that have been collected over different elevations of the Chiricahua Mountains of Southeastern Arizona. We established nine sampling locations where we set up pitfall traps and obtained data from coupled weather stations at each location. The fine-scale climate data collected over the course of the year combined with macro spectral photography used to measure reflectivity will allow us to see how temperature and weather might affect the reflectivity of these ant species. We found that infrared reflectivity tracked environmental conditions as we predicted.