Another highlight was waiting after dinner for the contributors: a communal moth night. The firebacks did not care concerning the extra 20 guests waiting on the forest clearing and came very near them, performing courtship behaviour and seemed to not care about the human spectators. With their behaviour unaware of people, these gamebirds showed that there isn’t any searching in that individual space which is a proof that the forest guards of Sakaerat reserve are doing an excellent job. It was a real pleasure to look at these birds so shut that are generally quite shy because of hunting strain and other forms of human predation. The president of ANeT, Dr. Himender Bharti, showed in his plenary discuss the various aspects on how ants are affected by local weather change. The talks lined many alternative matters on world change ecology. This matter was also lined by different plenary talks, Dr. Dr. Mezger introduced his research on the influence of climate change on the ant communities of two mountains of Borneo. Some contributors used the opportunity to climb on 40 m high climate commentary tower to which supplied spledied views over the tree canopy.
After lunch and a some information on this place, the conference members had the chance to attend several events. This tour included additionally a visit to the knowledge expertise museum and a behind the scenes tour to the ant collection of the pure historical past section of this museum advanced. Invasive species are all the time a hot matter on ANeT-conferences : many shows dealt with their affect on native arthropod communities, interception of exotic ant species on markets and ports and novel methods to regulate them. He presented a novel methodology to use Wasabi to combat the invasion of fireplace ants in Japan. Also the social program of this convention was very impressive: It started with the welcome social gathering at the primary night with a traditional Thai Dance efficiency and an enormous fire present. With the arrival at the Faculty buildings in Bangkok, the conference was finished and the convention members waved goodbye to one another and headed back home or to their holiday vacation spot in Thailand inside the subsequent days. After that, it was already time to leave this glorious place and to go back by coach to Bangkok. After a 5 hour bus journey the individuals came from the mega-metropolis of Bangkok to the virtually pristine dry dipterocarp forests and dry evergreen forests of the Khorat plateau.
A bird walk in the following morning launched the contributors to the avian life of the dry dipterocarp forest with Burmese shrike and Red-breasted Parakeet as highlights. The mid morning was used for another excursion to the ant of the evergreen dry forest. A life ant exhibition offered some colonies of cryptic leaf litter species like Strumigenys or Discothyrea. Greater than 20 moth species and plenty of different insects like earwigs, crickets and beetles appeared at the sunshine. Greater than 83 individuals from no less than 17 countries attended this convention which was held from 11th to 15th November 2019 at the Faculty of Forestry at Kasetsart University in Bangkok, Thailand. After that, all conference participants had been invited to hitch the Loy Kra Tong Festival on the campus of Kasetsart University. After that, the employees of the research stations offered the avian hightlight of this area: the Siamese Fireback Pheasant. The excursion to the Sakaerat Environmental Research Station the ultimate spotlight of this convention. ANeT 2019 additionally offered two wonderful field journeys: One the first day, the conference participants have been invited to visit the brand new constructed Rama IX Museum. At this analysis station, the sphere journey individuals obtained a prime introduction to the forest ecosystems of central Thailand.
The first half was a stroll via the forests where a number of ant genera typical for Thailand’s forest ecosystems were recorded: Aphaenogaster, Carebara or Pheidole. An ant identification course was organized by Pofessor R.K. A presentation of Dr. Jochen Drescher was on the influence of oil palm plantations in Indonesia on the phylogenetic composition of ant communities and their practical ecology. Seiki Yamane where college students could get some first hand insights into ant taxonomy. Seiki Yamane gave a plenary speak on the historical past of ANeT and how taxonomic sources had been established in various Asian international locations with the help of ANeT. At this point the talk of Prof. Yoshiaki Hashimoto have to be highlighted. Since the first ANeT Conference passed off 20 years ago, Prof. em. Thank you very much to Prof. Decha Wiwatwittaya and all others who help with this wonderful and inspiring convention with loads of thrilling impressions and new connections! For the first time, the financial problem of ants was discussed broadly at an ANeT conference. From nesting ecology of Polyrhachis ants in Thailand’s dry evergreen forests, the secret live of Rhopalomastix contained in the tree bark, ants alongside an elevational gradient in New Guinea, DNA barcoding of ants from the Philipinnes to the description of recent Platythyrea species: the 12th ANeT assembly covered a large array of various trending myrmecological matters.