Ant Researchers:
- Bharti, Himender
- Borowiec, Marek L
- Brühl, Carsten
- Dias, Sriyani
- Fayle, Tom
- Fiala, Brigitte
- Herwina, Henny
- Kiran, Kadri
- Kumar, Dolly
- Lim, Grace T
- Linsenmair, K Eduard
- Menzel, Florian
- Mezger, Dirk
- Mishra, Archana
- Narendra, Ajay
- Noon-anant, Nawee
- Offenberg, Joachim
- Paknia, Omid
- Peeters, Christian
- Perera, Aneska
- Pfeiffer, Martin
- Rastogi, Neelkamal
- Rizali, Akhmad
- Robson, Simon
- Schlick-Steiner, Birgit C
- Schultz, Roland
- Schulz, Andreas
- Sharaf, Mostafa R
- Sharma, Yash P
- Steiner, Florian M
- Vakhide, Nassim
- Varghese, Thresiamma
- Watanasit, Suparoek
- Yahya, Bakhtiar E
Dr. Tom Fayle
Date and place of Birth:
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01 June 1981, Oslo - Norway
- University of South Bohemia
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Laboratory of Tropical Ecology
University of South Bohemia
Branišovská 31
370 05 České Budějovice
- Czech Republic
- +4207770838800
- +4207770838800
- Ant Ecology, Community Ecology, Habitat Change, Forest Fragmentation, Bird's nest ferns, Epiphytes, Mutualism
- Malaysia, Papua New Guinea
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Ant-plant symbioses
During my PhD I studied the interaction between bird’s nest ferns (Asplenium spp.) (Fayle et al. 2008; Fayle et al. 2009) and their ant inhabitants. Although ant inhabitants do protect ferns from herbivores these ferns do not cultivate a relationship with any particular species of ant (Fayle et al. In press). Instead, over 70 different ant species nest in the ferns. This tremendous diversity is in part maintained by a phylogenetic hierarchy of competitive interactions between ant species. At the other end of the spectrum of specialisation, I have studied the interaction between two specialist ant species and the rattan plant they both inhabit (Edwards et al. 2010).
Ant-termite predatory interactions
I am interested in quantifying the degree and specificity of ant predation on termites. Despite being two of the most abundant and ecologically important animal groups in tropical rain forests, work to date has tended to focus on a single pair of species and consequently there is little understanding of the overall nature of this interaction. In collaboration with the Natural History Museum, London, I am using molecular methods to determine the overall frequency of termite predation and the level of ant predatory specificity in a rain forest in Gabon.
Effects of habitat change on ant communities and the functions they perform
Clear-felling relating to agricultural expansion, logging and fragmentation of forest are major drivers of biodiversity loss (Turner et al. 2008, Turner et al. 2011, Foster et al. In press). I have quantified the way in which habitat modification impacts on ant communities (Fayle et al. 2010, Woodcock et al. In press) and the subsequent change in ecosystem function (Fayle et al. 2011). I am also involved in a new experimental forest fragmentation project (Stability of Altered Forest Ecosystems – SAFE) that seeks to understand the relationship between local landscape habitat complexity and biodiversity and ecosystem functioning.
Development of techniques for detecting species interactions from presence/absence data
Null models of species co-occurrence are an increasingly popular way of assessing interactions between species. Despite this, little is known about the rates of Type 1 and Type 2 errors for such metrics. I have used a simulation-based approach to assess the way error rates vary with matrix size and variance in species abundance for a commonly-used metric, the c-score (Fayle & Manica 2010, Fayle and Manica 2011).
Assessment of biodiversity survey techniques
I have conducted work determining the optimal methods for assessing animal diversity, for tropical canopy ants (Yusah et al. In press) and temperate moths (Fayle et al. 2007) .
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Fayle T.M., Edwards D.P., Turner, E.C., Dumbrell A.J., Eggleton P. & Foster W.A. (In press). Public goods, public services, and by-product mutualism in an ant-fern symbiosis. Oikos
Brussaard L., Aanen D.K., Briones M., Decaëns T, De Deyn G.B., Fayle T.M. & James S.W. (In press) Biogeography and phylogenetic community structure of soil invertebrate ecosystem engineers: global to local patterns and implications for ecosystem functioning and global environmental change impacts. In Wall D.H. et al. (Eds.) Soil Ecology and Ecosystem Services. Oxford University Press, UK.
Yusah K.M., Fayle T.M., Harris G. & Foster W.A. (In press). Optimising diversity assessment protocols for high canopy ants in tropical rain forest. Biotropica.
Foster W.A., Snaddon J.L., Turner E.C., Fayle T.M., Cockerill T.D., Ellwood M.D.F., Broad G.R., Chung A.Y.C., Eggleton E., Chey V.K., Yusah K.M. (2011). Establishing the evidence base for maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem function in the oil palm landscapes of South East Asia. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 366: 3277-3291
Fayle T.M. & Manica A. (2011). Bias in null model analyses of species co-occurrence: a response to Gotelli and Ulrich (2010). Ecological Modelling 222: 1340-1341.
Fayle T.M., Dumbrell A.J., Turner E.C & Foster W.A. (2011). Distributional patterns of epiphytic ferns are explained by the presence of cryptic species. Biotropica 43: 6-7.
Woodcock P., Edwards D.P., Fayle T.M., Newton R.J., Chey V.K.. Bottrell S.H. & Hamer K.C. (2011) The conservation value of Southeast Asia’s highly degraded forests: evidence from leaf-litter ants. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 366: 3256-3264.
Turner E.C., Snaddon J.L., Ewers R.M., Fayle T.M. and Foster W.A. (2011). The Impact of Oil Palm Expansion on Environmental Change: Putting Conservation Research in Context. In Bernardes M.A.S. (Ed.) Environmental Impact of Biofuels. InTech Press.
Fayle T.M., Bakker L., Cheah C., Ching T.M., Davey A., Dem F., Earl A., Huaimei Y., Hyland S., Johansson B., Ligtermoet E., Lim R., Lin L.K., Luangyotha P., Herlander Martins B., Palmeirim A.F., Paninhuan S., Kepfer Rojas S., Sam L., Sam P.T.T., Susanto D., Wahyudi A., Walsh J., Weigl S., Craze P.G., Jehle R., Metcalfe D. & Trevelyan T. (2011). A positive relationship between ant biodiversity (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) and rate of scavenger-mediated nutrient redistribution along a disturbance gradient in a south-east Asian rain forest. Myrmecological News 14: 5-12.
Fayle T.M. & Manica A. (2010). Reducing over-reporting of deterministic co-occurrence patterns in biotic communities. Ecological Modelling 221: 2237-2242.
Fayle T.M. (2010) Go to the ant thou sluggard... Trends in Ecology and Evolution 25: 431-432.
Fayle T.M., Turner E.C., Snaddon J.L., Chey V.K., Chung A.Y., Eggleton P.E. & Foster W.A. (2010). Oil palm expansion into rain forest greatly reduces ant biodiversity in canopy, epiphytes and leaf litter. Basic and Applied Ecology 11: 337-345.
Edwards D.P., Ansell F.A., Woodcock P, Fayle T.M., Chey V.K. & Hamer K.C. (2010) Can the failure to punish promote cheating in mutualism? Oikos 119: 45-52.
Fayle T.M., Chung A.Y.C., Dumbrell A.J., Eggleton P. & Foster W.A. (2009). The Effect of Rain Forest Canopy Architecture on the Distribution of Epiphytic Ferns (Asplenium spp.) in Sabah, Malaysia. Biotropica 41: 676-681.
Fayle T.M., Ellwood M.D.F., Turner E.C., Snaddon J.L., Yusah K.M. & Foster W.A. (2008). Bird’s nest ferns: islands of biodiversity in the rainforest canopy. Antenna 32: 34-37.
Turner E.C., Snaddon J.L., Fayle T.M. & Foster W.A. (2008). Oil Palm Research in Context: Identifying the Need for Biodiversity Assessment. PLoS ONE 3: e1572.
Fayle T.M. (2008). Book Review of Ants of North America: A Guide to the Genera by Brian Fisher & Stefan Cover. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 152: 847.
Disney R.H.L. & Fayle T.M. (2008). A New Species of Scuttle Fly (Diptera: Phoridae) Parasitizing an Ant (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) in Borneo. Sociobiology 51: 327-332.
Field J., Turner E., Fayle T.M. & Foster W.A. (2007). Costs of egg-laying and offspring provisioning: multifaceted parental investment in a digger wasp. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 274: 445-451.
Fayle T.M., Sharp R.E. & Majerus M.E.N. (2007). The effect of moth trap type on size and composition in British Lepidoptera. British Journal of Entomology and Natural History 20: 221-232.
Aldridge D.C., Fayle T.M. & Jackson N. (2007). Freshwater mussel abundance predicts biodiversity in UK lowland rivers. Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems 17: 554-564.
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Helped to run a stall at the Royal Society's 2007 Summer Exhibition, London, UK.
- I am fascinated by all aspects of ants: their ecology, their behaviour, their taxonomy.
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- Last update: 29/10/2011