Francisco Hita Garcia Ph.D.

Scientist / (Senior) Scientist

• Dynamics of Nature

• Center for Integrative Biodiversity Discovery

My research focuses on understanding how insect diversity is generated, structured, and maintained, and on developing tools that accelerate the discovery, documentation, and monitoring of that diversity. Ants are central to this agenda: they are globally distributed, ecologically dominant, and hyper-diverse, but their ecology and phenotypic evolution are still poorly understood. I combine 3D next-generation phenomics, such as microtomography, ecology, phylogenomics, biodiversity discovery, as well as biogeography and macroevolution. My long-term goal is to build scalable, collections-based workflows that link phenotypes with genomes and ecology, thus answering fundamental questions in macroecology and macroevolution, while providing robust baselines for biodiversity monitoring and conservation.