- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
This is his exit seminar. Borowiec received his doctorate in entomology in June, studying with major professor Phil Ward. He is now a postdoc in the lab of evolutionary biologist/ant specialist Christian Rabeling of Rochester, N.Y. The lab will be moving to Tempe, Ariz. in January.
"Ants are the world's most successful eusocial organisms." Borowiec says. "Long history, high species diversity, and extreme variety of life histories make them an excellent group in which many evolutionary questions can be addressed."
His research interests include phylogeny, taxonomy, biogeography, and natural history of ants. Before enrolling at UC Davis, Borowiec received his master's degree in 2009 from the Department of Biodiversity and Evolutionary Taxonomy, University of Wroclaw, Poland.
"My focus has been primarily on ant diversity and evolution and in my research I combine field work, morphology, molecular phylogenetics, and comparative methods," Borowiec says. "I am also interested in computing and phylogeny estimation from next-generation sequencing data."
His dissertation research at UC Davis focused on building a taxonomic and phylogenetic framework for the research on army ant evolution. "Although army ants include very charismatic species, they belong to a larger group, the subfamily Dorylinae," he noted. "In addition to the army ants, dorylines comprise many cryptic ants whose biology and even taxonomy have been neglected. Partly as a result of this, even phylogenetic relationships of the army ants are not well-understood. The first step to advancing evolutionary research in the group was thus to examine the morphological diversity within this lineage. This resulted in a generic revision of the subfamily, published open-access in ZooKeys. Expertise gained during this work allowed me to design robust taxon sampling for a phylogeny of the dorylines based on next-generation sequencing data (ultraconserved elements or UCEs), currently in preparation."
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
His project, “Understanding a Landmark Social Insect Radiation: Comparative Analysis, Phylogenomics and Morphology of Dorylomorph Ants,” is a two-year grant funded for $19,932.
“Army ants are some of the most striking organisms found in warm temperate and tropical regions of the world,” Borowiec wrote in his abstract. “They are the most important invertebrate predators of the tropics, making them key species in rainforest ecosystems. This research will reconstruct the evolutionary history of army ants and their close relatives. The family tree of these ants, their geographic origins and the timeline of the evolution of traits that account for their ecological dominance will be investigated.”
Borowiec will construct an evolutionary tree from the ants' DNA, using latest advances in molecular biology and bioinformatics. “This tree will then serve as a framework for testing hypotheses on the evolution of army ant characteristics,” he wrote. “This study will also provide a new framework for identification of army ants and closely related species.”
“This project will not only bring insights into the history of an ecologically important group of insects but also help to understand how the latest advances in molecular biology, statistics and computer science can improve our knowledge of evolutionary processes. New resources allowing easier and more accurate identification of these ants will aid other biologists and conservation specialists in decision making and planning further research on the group.”
Borowiec, who has studied with major professor Phil Ward since September 2010, received his master's degree, with honors, in zoology in 2009 from the University of Wroclaw, Poland. His thesis focused on the taxonomy of Cerapachys sexspinus group. He received his bachelor of science degree, with honors, in biological sciences/zoology in 2007, also from the University of Wrocław.
He has published his peer-reviewed research in ZooKeys, Journal of Hymenoptera Research Myrmecological News and Polish Journal of Entomology, among others.
Among his mostly published research:
Snelling R.S., Borowiec M.L., Prebus M.M. 2014. Studies on California ants: new species in the genus Temnothorax Mayr (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). ZooKeys, 372: 27-89.
Johnson B.R., Borowiec M.L., Chiu J.C., Lee E.K., Atallah J.,Ward P.S. 2013. Phylogenomics resolves the puzzle of evolutionary relationships among ants, bees, and wasps. ZooKeys 23:2058-2062.
Borowiec M.L., Borowiec L. 2013. New data on the occurrence of ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) in Lower Silesia and other regions of Poland [in Polish with English summary] Wiadomości Entomologiczne,32:49-57.