Adriatic Islands as natural laboratories of climate change: Are insects resistant to global warming?
The project investigates how ants use the microclimate and whether they can avoid elevated temperatures through changes in behaviour, physiology, or both.
Given that the Mediterranean is warming faster than the global average, and islands provide us with almost closed ecosystems with different temperatures, we will test the ability of ants on islands to adapt.
About the project
goals
Determine communiy level changes caused by temperature differences.
Discover how nest microclimate governs foraging decisions.
Explore the role of behaviour and physiology in coping with rising temperatures.
why ants?
Ants are important. - Ants are globally distributed and numerous.
- Ants are diverse.
- Ant colonies can be long-lived.
study sites
To study insect responses to elevated temperatures, we were looking for ecosystems that are isolated, have reduced habitat complexity, and are exposed to high temperatures.
We selected the islands in archipelagos of Brijuni National Park and Mljet National Park. These two archipelagos provide a unique opportunity to test local adaptations, given that the same ant species are exposed to different climatic conditions — cooler climates in the north and warmer climates in the south.
About the islands
project team
We are an anthusiastic team investigating how insects cope with global warming. We combine field and lab experiments to study how insects use behavior, physiology, or both to escape or acclimatize to temperature increase. We love using ants as our model insects.
About the team
novosti
Study stay at the University of Copenhagen
Jelena and Lina travelled to Denmark to work on ant respirometry.
15th Croatian Biological Congress
ClimAnts team members presented their research at the 15th Croatian Biological Congress.
ClimAnts at Entomology 2025
Jelena, Marko, and Antonia attended Entomology 2025 conference in Portland, USA.