معرفی
Vanessa Menges is a PhD student and Research Associate at the Institute for Organismic and Molecular Evolutionary Biology, Faculty of Biology, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. She works under the supervision of PD Dr. Florian Menzel in the Menzel research group, focusing on chemical ecology of social insects.
Her educational background includes a B.Sc. in Biology (2013-2017) and M.Sc. in Biology (2018-2019), both from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. Her master's thesis examined sex pheromone production by symbiotic yeasts in cigarette beetles, while her bachelor's thesis investigated neuro-amines' role in honey bee foraging.
Dr. Menges' research centers on how social insects, particularly ants, use chemical cues to assess their environment and alter behavior. Her doctoral work investigates how chemical footprints (CFPs) - hydrocarbon deposits left by ants during movement - influence foraging activity and competitive interactions within ant communities. She examines both intra- and interspecific effects of these chemical footprints through laboratory and field experiments with local and invasive ant species, exploring how these chemical signals allow coexistence despite high competition.
Her work bridges chemical ecology and behavioral biology, examining how trait-mediated interactions (rather than consumptive effects) shape ant community structures. As chemical footprints are by-products of foraging activity with compositions largely congruent to cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs), they provide valuable information about colony identity and potential competitive threats, allowing ants to avoid risky encounters before they occur.
