April Lecture: Your Lawn Is a Battlefield – The Fascinating World of Ant Diversity, Ecology, and Behaviour

Date: Apr 07, 2026 at 19:00
Meeting Location: Zoom Meeting

Join us on Tuesday, April 7, 2026 at 7:00 pm for our April lecture.

Wars, espionage, animal husbandry, even air conditioning! Ants are eerily similar to us in many fascinating ways. In this talk, Dr. Aaron Fairweather will share about the diversity of ant species, ecologies, and behaviours found around the GTA and beyond. We will learn about what ant castes are, common species of the GTA, how ants communicate, and, yes, ant war, espionage, animal husbandry, and even air conditioning.

Dr. Aaron Fairweather (They/them) is an entomologist from Guelph, Ontario. They have had a lifelong passion for insects, keen to learn all they could. At age fifteen, they helped curate the entomology collection at the New Brunswick Museum and became a research associate there. Ants were understudied in the Maritime provinces, which drew Aaron toward this group of insects. Ever since, ants have fascinated Aaron, and they dedicated their undergraduate and graduate career to studying them. Aaron’s master’s focused on ant diversity and ecology in Ontario and New Brunswick, and their PhD focused on how environmental contaminants impact ant communities on farms. They are currently a sessional lecturer and researcher in toxicology, biochemistry, and entomology at the University of Guelph.

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/88918383474?pwd=R37yayrZm3rai6FFDKObBYphOyvoqE.1

Meeting ID: 889 1838 3474
Passcode: 393754

This event is part of our free monthly lecture series. TFN members enjoy advance notice of upcoming lectures and follow-up commentary in our newsletter. Not a member? Learn more about the benefits of membership now!

Please tag any posts related to this lecture with #TFNTalk so that we can all join in the conversation.

Toronto Field Naturalists wishes to acknowledge this Land through which we walk. For thousands of years, the Land has been shared by the Wendat, the Haudenosaunee, and the Anishinaabe. Toronto is situated on the Land within the Toronto Purchase, Treaty 13, the traditional and treaty Lands of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. This territory is also part of the Dish with One Spoon Wampum, a covenant agreement between Anishinaabeg, Haudenosaunee, Wendat peoples and allied nations to peaceably share the land and all its resources. Today, the Land is home to peoples of numerous nations. We are all grateful to have the opportunity to continue to care for and share the beauty of this Land.