Phillip Barden
(Phil Barden)
Associate Professor, Biological Sciences
- phillip.m.barden@njit.edu
- 973-596-5863
- 428B Central King Building (CKB)
About Me
I am an evolutionary biologist interested in the evolution and ecology eusocial animals. My work centers on patterns of diversity, ecological impact, and the evolution of complex behaviors in ants.
Work in my lab is comparative, meaning we collect and analyze data from multiple species to hone in on underlying processes that are broadly applicable throughout biology. Part of this work involves microscopy, imaging, and physical specimens: we use social insects and the amber fossil record as a model system for testing hypotheses related to extinction and the link between morphology and ecology. We also use molecular data to better understand the genetic consequences and foundations of eusociality through comparative genomics.
Work in my lab is comparative, meaning we collect and analyze data from multiple species to hone in on underlying processes that are broadly applicable throughout biology. Part of this work involves microscopy, imaging, and physical specimens: we use social insects and the amber fossil record as a model system for testing hypotheses related to extinction and the link between morphology and ecology. We also use molecular data to better understand the genetic consequences and foundations of eusociality through comparative genomics.
Education
Ph.D.; American Museum of Natural History: Richard Gilder Graduate School; Comparative Biology; 2015
B.S.; Arizona State University; Biology; 2009
B.S.; Arizona State University; Ecology And Evolution; 2009
Awards & Honors
2025 Master Teacher, New Jersey Institute of Technology
2022 Elected Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society, Royal Entomological Society
2022 Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award, National Science Foundation
2022 Rising Star Research Award , New Jersey Institute of Technology, College of Science & Liberal Arts
2021 Excellence in Teaching Award, New Jersey Institute of Technology
2016 Snodgrass Memorial Award in Morphology, Entomology Society of America
2015 Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology (PRFB), National Science Foundation
2013 Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant, National Science Foundation
2012 Graduate Research Fellowship (GRFP), National Science Foundation
Website
2026 Fall Courses
BIOL 491 - SENIOR PROJECT
BIOL 792B - PRE-DOCTORAL RESEARCH
BIOL 205 - FOUND OF BIO:ECOL & EVOL I-HONORS
BIOL 790C - DOCTORAL DISSERTN & RESRCH
BIOL 725 - INDEPENDENT STUDY I
BIOL 790A - DOCT DISSERTATION & RESRCH
BIOL 790D - DOCT DISSERTATION & RESRCH
BIOL 790B - DOCT DISSERTATION & RESRCH
BIOL 790E - DOCTORAL DISSERTATION
BIOL 792C - PRE-DOCTORAL RESEARCH
BIOL 492 - RESEARCH & INDEPENDENT STUDY
Teaching Interests
Evolutionary biology, ecology, paleontology, extinction, systematics
Past Courses
BIOL 205: FOUND OF BIO:ECOL & EVOL - HONORS
BIOL 205: FOUND OF BIO:ECOL & EVOL I
BIOL 205: FOUND OF BIO:ECOL & EVOL I - HONORS
BIOL 205: FOUNDATIONS OF BIOLOGY: ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION LECTURE
BIOL 222: EVOLUTION
BIOL 320: DISCOVERING BIOL RESEARCH
BIOL 621: ECOLOGY
BIOL 622: EVOLUTION
BIOL 630: CRITICAL THINKING FOR THE LIFE SCIENCES
BIOL 698: SELECTED TOPICS IN BIOLOGY
BIOL 731: PROPOSAL PREP FOR EXTNL FUNDIN
Research Interests
Evolutionary biology, paleontology, ecology, functional morphology, systematics, biological imaging, genomics.
Journal Article
Lacie G. Newton, John C. Abbott, Seth M. Bybee, Payton Carter, Paul B. Frandsen, Aaron Goodman, Robert Guralnick, Brittney Hahn, Jacob Idec, Vincent J. Kalkman, Manpreet Kolhi, Judicaël Fomekong-Lontchi, Pungki Lupiyaningdyah, Violet Onsongo, Emma Rowe, Melissa Sanchez-Herrera, Stefan Pinkert, Laura Sutherland, Ethan Tolman, Rhema Uche-Dike, Phillip M. Barden, Michael Belitz, Cornelio A. Bota-Sierra, Adolfo Cordero-Rivera, Alex Córdoba-Aguilar, Klaas Douwe Dijkstra, Rory A. Dow, Juliana Ehlert, Rhainer G. Ferreira, Matti Hämäläinen, Leandro Juen, M. Olalla Lorenzo-Carballa, Bill Mauffray, Anne L. Nielsen, Pablo Pessacq, Thai Hong Pham, Ângelo Parise Pinto, Stephen J. Richards, Ruth Salas, Jeffrey H. Skevington, Gunther Theischinger, Haomiao Zhang, Jessica L. Ware. 2026. "Soaring Systematics: An Evaluation of Biogeography and Flight Behavior in Dragonflies and Damselflies (Insecta: Odonata) Using Phylogenomics." Systematic Biology, vol. 75, no. 5, pp. 984-1002.
Elyssa J.T. Loewen, Caelan Libke, Christine Sosiak, Phillip M. Barden, Christopher Somers, Ryan C. McKellar. 2026. "Ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) preserved in amber shed light on faunal turnover and ecological roles before the end-Cretaceous extinction." Insect Systematics and Diversity, vol. 10, no. 4.
Valentine Bouju, Cédric Chény, Dietrich Gotzek, Vincent Perrichot, Fernando Fernandez, Phillip M. Barden, Gianpiero Fiorentino. 2026. "Solenopsis (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) thief ants in Dominican amber and putative subfossil resin." Fossil Record, vol. 29, no. 2, pp. 499-517.
Gianpiero Fiorentino, Rodolfo Probst, Adrian Richter, Evan P Economo, Phillip M. Barden. 2025. "A fossil-informed pattern of body size increase and local extinction in Basiceros dirt ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)." Proceedings B, vol. 292, no. 2045, pp. 20242171.
Gianpiero Fiorentino, Sánchez, Am\'erica, Phillip M. Barden, others. 2025. "A new species of Crematogaster (Hymenoptera: Formicidae: Myrmicinae) with contrasting coloration unique to the Caribbean." Novitates Caribaea, no. 26, pp. 1--10.
Jill T Oberski, Zachary H Griebenow, Rachelle MM Adams, Alan Andersen, Joudellys Andrade-Silva, Phillip M. Barden, Marek Borowiec, Brady, Se\'an, Alexandre Casadei-Ferreira, Cs\Hosz, S\'andor, others. 2025. "Ant systematics: past, present, and future." Insect systematics and diversity, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 11.
Thomas Vida, Zachary T Calamari, Phillip M. Barden. 2025. "Post K-Pg rise in ant and termite prevalence underlies convergent dietary specialization in mammals." Evolution, vol. 79, no. 10, pp. 2315--2324.
Gianpiero Fiorentino, Valentine Bouju, Diyael Sosa, Santo Navarro, Phillip M. Barden. 2025. "The ant genus Hypoponera (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) in Dominican amber." Journal of Paleontology, vol. 99, no. 6, pp. 1418-1422.
Jill T. Oberski, Zachary H. Griebenow, Rachelle M.M. Adams, Alan Andersen, Joudellys Andrade-Silva, Phillip M. Barden, Marek Borowiec, Sean Brady, Alexandre Casadei-Ferreira, Sandor Csősz, Amanda Martins Dias, Ratnayake Kaluarachchige Dias, Rodrigo Machado Feitosa, Fernando Fernandez, Brian L. Fisher, David Emmanuel General, Kiko Gomez, Jörg U. Hammel, Peter G. Hawkes, Milan Janda, Adam Khalife, Natalia Ladino, Ziv E. Lieberman, Andrea Lucky, Mattia Menchetti, Livia Pires Prado, Matthew M. Prebus, Rodolfo S. Probst, Aswaj Punnath, Adrian Richter, Sebastian Salata, Andres F. Sanchez-Restrepo, Enrico Schifani, Ted R. Schultz, Rogerio R. Silva, Jeffrey Sosa-Calvo, Maria C. Tocora, Monica Antunes Ulyssea, Thomas Van De Kamp, Wendy Y. Wang, Jason L. Williams, Gabriela Procopio Camacho, Brendon E. Boudinot. 2025. "Ant systematics: Past, present, and future." Insect Systematics and Diversity, vol. 9, no. 4.
Christine Sosiak, Pierre Cockx, Pablo Aragonés Suarez, Ryan McKellar, Phillip M. Barden. 2024. "Prolonged faunal turnover in earliest ants revealed by North American Cretaceous amber." Current Biology, vol. 34, pp. 1755-1761.
Gianpiero Fiorentino, John Lattke, Adrian Troya, Christine Sosiak, Minsoo Dong, Phillip M. Barden. 2023. "Deep time extinction of largest insular ant predators and the first fossil Neoponera (Formicidae: Ponerinae) from Miocene age Dominican amber." BMC biology, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 1--12.
JESSICA L WARE. 2023. "Description of a novel termite ectoparasite, Termitaria hexasporodochia sp. nov.(Kathistaceae), presenting an unusual six-sectioned infestation, and a key to the fungal family Kathistaceae." Phytotaxa, vol. 591, no. 2, pp. 106--124.
Christine Sosiak, Tyler Janovitz, Vincent Perrichot, John Paul Timonera, Phillip M. Barden. 2023. "Trait-Based Paleontological Niche Prediction Recovers Extinct Ecological Breadth of the Earliest Specialized Ant Predators." The American Naturalist, vol. 202, no. 6, pp. E147-E162.
Phillip M. Barden. 2023. "Where the Hell Ants Came From." American Entomologist, vol. 69, no. 3, pp. 36-37.
Phillip M. Barden. 2023. "Community form, function and phylogenetic diversity respond differently across microhabitat and recovery gradients." Journal of Animal Ecology, vol. 92, no. 7, pp. 1290-1293.
Indira Sawh, Eunice Bae, Luciana Camilo, Michele Lanan, Andrea Lucky, Henrique Morais Menezes, Gianpiero Fiorentino, Christine Sosiak, Lily Khadempour, Phillip M. Barden. 2023. "The first fossil replete ant worker establishes living food storage in the Eocene." Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
Christine E. Sosiak, Marek L. Borowiec, Phillip M. Barden. 2023. "An Invited Reply to: A Comment on: An Eocene army ant (2022) by Sosiak CE
<i>et al</i>
.." Biology Letters, vol. 19, no. 4.
Christine E. Sosiak, Marek L. Borowiec, Phillip M. Barden. 2023. "Retraction: An Eocene army ant." Biology Letters, vol. 19, no. 3.
Alexander Clark, Sophia D'Anna, Jessy Nemati, Phillip M. Barden, Ian Gatley, John F. Federici. 2022. "Evaluation of Fossil Amber Birefringence and Inclusions Using Terahertz Time-Domain Spectroscopy." Polymers, vol. 14, no. 24, pp. 5506.
Christine E. Sosiak, Marek L. Borowiec, Phillip M. Barden. 2022. "RETRACTED: An Eocene army ant." Biology Letters, vol. 18, no. 11.
Alexander T. Clark, Sophia D’Anna, Jessy Nemati, Phillip M. Barden, Ian Gatley, John F. Federici. 2022. "Evaluation of Fossil Amber Birefringence and Inclusions Using Terahertz Time-Domain Spectroscopy." Polymers, vol. 14, no. 24, pp. 5506.
Phillip M. Barden, MICHAEL S. ENGEL. 2022. "The vision of David Grimaldi." Palaeoentomology, vol. 5, no. 5.
MICHAEL S Engel, HOLLISTER W Herhold, Phillip M. Barden. 2022. "A proctotrupid wasp in Lebanese Lower Cretaceous amber (Hymenoptera: Proctotrupidae)." Palaeoentomology, vol. 5, no. 5, pp. 439--444.
Phillip M. Barden, Christine E. Sosiak, Jonpierre Grajales, John Hawkins, Louis Rizzo, Alexander Clark, Samuel Gatley, Ian Gatley, John F. Federici. 2022. "Non-destructive comparative evaluation of fossil amber using terahertz time-domain spectroscopy." PLoS ONE, vol. 17, no. 3 March.
Megan Wilson, Phillip M. Barden, Jessica Ware. 2021. "A Review of Ectoparasitic Fungi Associated With Termites." Annals of the Entomological Society of America, vol. 114, pp. 373–396.
Caroline C Ennis, Nariah N Haeffner, Cameron D Keyser, Shannon T Leonard, Austin C Macdonald-Shedd, Avery M Savoie, Timothy J Cronin, Werner P Veldsman, Phillip M. Barden, Solomon TC Chak, others. 2021. "Comparative mitochondrial genomics of sponge-dwelling snapping shrimps in the genus Synalpheus: Exploring differences between eusocial and non-eusocial species and insights into phylogenetic relationships in caridean shrimps." Gene, vol. 786, pp. 145624.
Christine E. Sosiak, Phillip M. Barden. 2021. "Multidimensional trait morphology predicts ecology across ant lineages." Functional Ecology, vol. 35, pp. 139-152.
S TC Chak, A J Baeza, Phillip M. Barden. 2021. "Eusociality shapes convergent patterns of molecular evolution across mitochondrial genomes of sponge-dwelling snapping shrimps." Molecular Biology and Evolution, vol. 38, pp. 1372–1383.
Marc A. Mapalo, Ninon Robin, Brendon E. Boudinot, Javier Ortega-Hernández, Phillip M. Barden. 2021. "A tardigrade in Dominican amber." Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, vol. 288, no. 1960.
Michael S Engel, Luis M P Ceríaco, Gimo M Daniel, Pablo M Dellapé, Ivan Löbl, Milen Marinov, Roberto E Reis, Mark T Young, Alain Dubois, Ishan Agarwal, Pablo Lehmann A., Mabel Alvarado, Nadir Alvarez, Franco Andreone, Katyuscia Araujo-Vieira, John S Ascher, Délio Baêta, Diego Baldo, Suzana A Bandeira, Phillip M. Barden, Diego A Barrasso, Leila Bendifallah, Flávio A Bockmann, Wolfgang Böhme, Art Borkent, Carlos R F Brandão, Stephen D Busack, Seth M Bybee, Alan Channing, Stylianos Chatzimanolis, Maarten J M Christenhusz, Jorge V Crisci, Guillermo D’elía, Luis M Da Costa, Steven R Davis, De Lucena, Carlos Alberto S, Thierry Deuve, Sara Fernandes Elizalde, Julián Faivovich, Harith Farooq, Adam W Ferguson, Spartaco Gippoliti, Francisco M P Gonçalves, Victor H Gonzalez, Eli Greenbaum, Ismael A Hinojosa-Díaz, Ivan Ineich, Jianping Jiang, Sih Kahono, Adriano B Kury, Paulo H F Lucinda, John D Lynch, Valéry Malécot, Mariana P Marques, John W M Marris, Ryan C Mckellar, Luis F Mendes, Silvio S Nihei, Kanto Nishikawa, Annemarie Ohler, Victor G D Orrico, Hidetoshi Ota, Jorge Paiva, Diogo Parrinha, Olivier S G Pauwels, Martín O Pereyra, Lueji B Pestana, Paulo D P Pinheiro, Lorenzo Prendini, Jakub Prokop, Claus Rasmussen, Mark-Oliver Rödel, Miguel Trefaut Rodrigues, Sara M Rodríguez, Hearty Salatnaya, Íris Sampaio, Alba Sánchez-García, Mohamed A Shebl, Bruna S Santos, Mónica M Solórzano-Kraemer, Ana C A Sousa, Pavel Stoev, Pablo Teta, Jean-François Trape, Carmen Van-Dúnem Dos Santos, Karthikeyan Vasudevan, Cor J Vink, Gernot Vogel, Philipp Wagner, Torsten Wappler, Jessica L Ware, Sonja Wedmann, Chifundera Kusamba Zacharie. 2021. "The taxonomic impediment: a shortage of taxonomists, not the lack of technical approaches." Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, vol. 193, no. 2, pp. 381-387.
Chloe Jelley, Phillip M. Barden. 2021. "Vision-Linked Traits Associated With Antenna Size and Foraging Ecology Across Ants." Insect Systematics and Diversity, vol. 5, no. 9, pp. 1-10.
C M Tribull, Phillip M. Barden, M Olmi. 2020. "Hybristodryinus moutesoe (Hymenoptera, Dryinidae), a new species from mid-Cretaceous Kachin (Burmese) amber." Cretaceous Research, vol. 109, pp. 104381.
Phillip M. Barden, Vincent Perrichot, Bo Wang. 2020. "Specialized Predation Drives Aberrant Morphological Integration and Diversity in the Earliest Ants." Current Biology, vol. 30, no. 19, pp. 3818-3824.e4.
Phillip M. Barden. 2020. "Extinction through Ancient Compound Eyes." American Entomologist, vol. 66, no. 1, pp. 64.
Solomon T.C. Chak, J. Antonio Baeza, Phillip M. Barden. 2020. "The complete mitochondrial genome of the eusocial sponge- dwelling snapping shrimp Synalpheus microneptunus." Scientific Reports, vol. 10, pp. 7744 .
Vincent Perrichot, Bo Wang, Phillip M. Barden. 2020. "New remarkable hell ants (Formicidae: Haidomyrmecinae stat. nov.) from mid-Cretaceous amber of northern Myanmar." Cretaceous Research, vol. 109, pp. 104381.
Ninon Robin, Cyrille D'Haese, Phillip M. Barden. 2019. "Fossil amber reveals springtails’ longstanding dispersal by social insects." BMC Evolutionary Biology, vol. 19, no. 213, pp. 1-12.
John S Lapolla, Phillip M. Barden. 2018. "A new aneuretine ant from the Paleocene Paskapoo Formation of Canada." Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, vol. 63, no. 3, pp. 435--440.
David A Grimaldi, David Sunderlin, Georgene A Aaroe, Michelle R Dempsky, Nancy E Parker, George Q Tillery, Jaclyn G White, Phillip M. Barden, Paul C Nascimbene, Christopher J Williams. 2018. "Biological Inclusions in Amber from the Paleogene Chickaloon Formation of Alaska." American Museum Novitates, no. 3908, pp. 1--37.
Julian Katzke, Phillip M. Barden, Manuel Dehon, Denis Michez, Torsten Wappler. 2018. "Giant ants and their shape: revealing relationships in the genus Titanomyrma with geometric morphometrics." PeerJ, vol. 6, pp. e4242.
Phillip M. Barden, Hollister W Herhold, David A Grimaldi. 2017. "A new genus of hell ants from the Cretaceous (Hymenoptera: Formicidae: Haidomyrmecini) with a novel head structure." Systematic Entomology, vol. 42, no. 4, pp. 837--846.
Phillip M. Barden. 2017. "Fossil ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae): ancient diversity and the rise of modern lineages." Myrmecological News, vol. 24, pp. 1--30.
Phillip M. Barden, Jessica Ware. 2017. "Relevant Relicts: The Impact of Fossil Distributions on Biogeographic Reconstruction." Insect Systematics and Diversity, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 73--80.
Phillip M. Barden, Brendon Boudinot, Andrea Lucky. 2017. "Where Fossils Dare and Males Matter: combined morphological and molecular analysis untangles the evolutionary history of the spider ant genus Leptomyrmex Mayr (Hymenoptera: Dolichoderinae)." Invertebrate Systematics, vol. 31, no. 6, pp. 765--780.
Michael S Engel, Phillip M. Barden, David A Grimaldi. 2016. "A replacement name for the Cretaceous termite genus Gigantotermes (Isoptera)." University of Kansas.
Phillip M. Barden, David A Grimaldi. 2016. "Adaptive radiation in socially advanced stem-group ants from the Cretaceous." Current Biology, vol. 26, no. 4, pp. 515--521.
Jessica L Ware, Phillip M. Barden. 2016. "Incorporating fossils into hypotheses of insect phylogeny." Current opinion in insect science, vol. 18, pp. 69--76.
Michael S Engel, Phillip M. Barden, Mark L Riccio, David A Grimaldi. 2016. "Morphologically specialized termite castes and advanced sociality in the Early Cretaceous." Current Biology, vol. 26, no. 4, pp. 522--530.
David A Grimaldi, Phillip M. Barden. 2016. "The Mesozoic family Eremochaetidae (Diptera: Brachycera) in Burmese amber and relationships of Archisargoidea: Brachycera in Cretaceous amber, part VIII." American Museum Novitates, no. 3865, pp. 1--29.
Antonio Arillo, Enrique Penalver, P\'EREZ-DE LA FUENTE, RICARDO, Xavier Delclos, Julia Criscione, Phillip M. Barden, Mark L Riccio, David A Grimaldi. 2015. "Long-proboscid brachyceran flies in Cretaceous amber (Diptera: Stratiomyomorpha: Zhangsolvidae)." Systematic Entomology, vol. 40, no. 1, pp. 242--267.
Phillip M. Barden, David Grimaldi. 2014. "A diverse ant fauna from the mid-Cretaceous of Myanmar (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)." PLoS One, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. e93627.
Phillip M. Barden, David Grimaldi. 2013. "A new genus of highly specialized ants in Cretaceous Burmese amber (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)." Zootaxa, vol. 3681, no. 4, pp. 405--412.
Ansel Payne, Phillip M. Barden, Ward C. Wheeler, James M. Carpenter. 2013. "Direct Optimization, Sensitivity Analysis, and the Evolution of the Hymenopteran Superfamilies." American Museum Novitates, vol. 3789, no. 3789, pp. 1-20.
Phillip M. Barden, David Grimaldi. 2012. "Rediscovery of the bizarre Cretaceous ant Haidomyrmex Dlussky (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), with two new species." American Museum Novitates, no. 3755, pp. 1--16.
C. Tate Holbrook, Phillip M. Barden, Jennifer H. Fewell. 2011. "Division of labor increases with colony size in the harvester ant Pogonomyrmex californicus." Behavioral Ecology, vol. 22, no. 5, pp. 960-966.
Other
"Honeypots: a review of repletism across the ants"
Myrmecological News, January (1st Quarter/Winter), 2026.
Myrmecological News, January (1st Quarter/Winter), 2026.
"Ants (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) through space, time, and sociality: a history from amber."
2015.
2015.
Chapter
Phillip M. Barden, Michael Engel. "Fossil Social Insects." In Starr, eds., Springer International,, 2020.
Professional
Frontiers in Earth Science
Editorial Review Board Member, 2021
Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution
Editorial Review Board Member, 2021
Entomological Society of America
Chairperson, 2020
Publications Council of the Entomological Society of America
Committee Member, 2019
Public Library of Science (PLOS ONE)
Editorial Review Board Member, 2019
Journal of Insect Science
Editorial Review Board Member, 2017