Ants, aphids and parasitoid wasps: An invisible war shaping our ecosystems
Based on Plata, Fernández de Bobadilla & Tena (2025) – Biological Reviews Table of Contents 1. A powerful mutualism: Ants and hemipterans 2. The enemy in the shadows: Parasitoid wasps 3. A 300-million-year evolutionary story 4. The ants’ arsenal: Organized and efficient defense 5. The wasps’ counterstrategies: Evolutionary ingenuity 6. Not all ants or hemipterans […]
Seminar – The role of cover crops in sustainable agriculture (INAGEA, Mallorca, 2025)
In May 2025, I was invited as a speaker at a scientific seminar organized by INAGEA (Institut d’Investigacions Agroambientals i d’Economia de l’Aigua, University of the Balearic Islands), where experts discussed the key role of cover crops in promoting sustainable agricultural systems. My talk focused on how vegetation cover in citrus orchards influences ant communities […]
Interview with one of the great referents in inter-organism communication research
With more than 12,000 citations (12509) and more than 200 publications most of them in high impact journals, Consuelo De Moraes is one of the great references in inter-organism communication research. I have had the great pleasure and privilege of being able to talk and interview her in depth about her scientific career. About Consuelo […]
Plants anticipate frequent pest attacks
Cabbage butterfly larva on a black mustard plant (Erik Poelman). A paper from Wageningen University has found that plants adapt their defense strategies to the pests that affect them and are able to anticipate future attacks by the most frequent herbivorous insects. Plants have evolved defense strategies to cope with the uncertainty of when, by […]