{"id":2463,"date":"2012-04-08T22:38:37","date_gmt":"2012-04-08T22:38:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.cos.ucf.edu\/?p=2463"},"modified":"2012-04-08T22:38:37","modified_gmt":"2012-04-08T22:38:37","slug":"biology-professor-featured-on-ucf-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sciences.ucf.edu\/news\/biology-professor-featured-on-ucf-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Potential role for ants in ecosystem services"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A molten aluminum cast of an ant\u2019s nest hangs from the ceiling. On the desk, six dead ants are pinned inside a box, awaiting identification. Next to them sits a vial of dead termites. Still, the most interesting thing you\u2019ll find in the office of Dr. Joshua King, is the truth.<\/p>\n<p>Consider a queen, executed for not producing enough offspring. A community whose entire male population functions solely as \u201csperm rockets.\u201d A group of female workers tasked with invading their neighbors and stealing their children. It may sound like the history of a vicious alien empire, but it\u2019s just another day for the invasive species known as fire ants.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dr. King, an assistant professor in the Biology Department, has been studying Florida\u2019s diverse ant population (200+ species) for the past 11 years. <\/strong><strong>Now, Dr. King is exploring a potential role for ants in ecosystem services (when an organism\u2019s natural functions provide some value to humans). <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/today.ucf.edu\/profile\/the-man-who-stares-at-ants-joshua-king\/\">See the special feature here. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A molten aluminum cast of an ant\u2019s nest hangs from the ceiling. On the desk, six dead ants are pinned inside a box, awaiting identification. Next to them sits a vial of dead termites. Still, the most interesting thing you\u2019ll find in the office of Dr. Joshua King, is the truth. Consider a queen, executed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":2466,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[34,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-biology-departments","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Potential role for ants in ecosystem services - College of Sciences News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sciences.ucf.edu\/news\/biology-professor-featured-on-ucf-today\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Potential role for ants in ecosystem services - College of Sciences News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A molten aluminum cast of an ant\u2019s nest hangs from the ceiling. On the desk, six dead ants are pinned inside a box, awaiting identification. Next to them sits a vial of dead termites. Still, the most interesting thing you\u2019ll find in the office of Dr. Joshua King, is the truth. 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