Auburn University Assistant Professor Clint Penick will appear on episode of Planet Earth III that will air on BBC on Saturday.
Penick, who works in the Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology, will appear on the episode titled “Human.” It will cover how the more than 8 billion people on the planet alter 80% of the land’s surface and share space with myriad species.
“The segment focuses on my research on ants in New York City,” Penick said. “Ants are small and often don’t get much attention, so I was thrilled when BBC reached out to help them develop a pitch and serve as a scientific advisor.”
Penick has studied these particular urban ants for more than seven years. He worked with the production team for nearly three years as a paid consultant. He used New York City as a model to study how urbanization impacts biodiversity, specifically insects.
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He said New York City is the largest and most densely populated urban area in the United States. It has a surprising abundance and diversity of ants. Penick said there are 2,000 ants for every human living in New York City, and more than 40 ant species can be found within a 10-mile radius of the Empire State Building.
Penick also studies urban bees and currently has a grant from the USDA to study how they respond to urban heat and climate change. Insects play a dominant role in urban ecosystems in terms of both their abundance and diversity, but the role they play remains poorly understood.
The diversity of insects in cities is barely characterized, let alone the impacts of insects on nutrient cycling, soil health, pollination, disease transmission and other ecosystem processes.
Scientists like Penick study the role human foods play in urban food webs and how social insects are adapted to urban life. He’s shown that the most abundant ants in cities are those that exploit human foods.
“The research featured in Planet Earth III focuses on how ants living in the city are able to find and recruit to the food we drop on the ground,” Penick said. “It also shows the battles ants must fight with competitors, like pigeons, as they try to secure this limited resource.”
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