Title: Lessons in thermal ecology from rainforest ants

Abstract: We are rapidly heating up the planet, and scrambling to learn how this impacts biodiversity. Insects are shifting up mountains and higher latitudes, but what is happening in rainforests, which are the hottest places on Earth, which host the greatest biodiversity? I will present series of experiments with ants as a model system, describing how fine-scale thermal gradients impact how species move across the landscape at very fine spatial scales. I follow this work up with laboratory manipulations on colonies of one species, to understand the social organization of thermal tolerance. This work points towards new directions in thermal ecology that can better inform our understanding of, and response to, global climate change.