My five-year-old self would think I鈥檓 currently living the dream -聽 looking at and sorting insects. Back then, I was collecting ants in a cardboard box. Now, I鈥檓 looking at them through a microscope in a research lab. My undergraduate honors project is looking at these little insects to see how habitat fragmentation and wildfire affect their presence and abundance. Ants are important in various ecosystem processes, such as through seed dispersal and soil turnover. Looking at their presence can allow us to analyze how wildfire, overlaid with fragmentation, affect such processes as well as biodiversity. Humans are creating costly impacts on ecosystems through factors like fragmentation and climate change and looking at insects like ants can help us to understand how species continue to persist in altered landscapes. When I complete my honors project and undergraduate degree, my hope is to possibly go to grad school and continue working in the field of ecology, so that in the future, more five-year-olds can find amazement in nature too.
