Alex Moss PhD Dissertation Defense

Photo of Alex Moss laying his head near a group of ants on the sidewalkAlex Moss

Ph.D. Candidate

Advisor: Dr. Michael Greene

CU Denver Department of Integrative Biology

When: Friday, October 10th 2025, 9:00am
Where: Science Building, Room 4127 (4th Floor Conference Room)

Follow the leader: Group recruitment in the "greedy" ant Tetramorium immigrans

Urban environments are one of the fastest growing environments on Earth.  The creatures that inhabit them are subsequently spreading across the planet, and the field of urban ecology has arisen to tackle these increasingly common species and their interactions.  In my research I investigated the recruitment processes of the common pavement ant Tetramorium immigrans using object tracking softwarelooking to understand how this ant rallies workers to food resources as part of a larger inquiry as to why it has become one of the most prevalent ant species in temperate cities.