The European University for Well-Being (EUniWell)

Speaker:
Prof. Daniel Kronauer, The Rockefeller University, New York

Join the talk on Zoom

The colonies of social insects are complex biological systems in which manifold interactions between individuals give rise to emergent properties that are adaptive at the group level. However, most social insects cannot be propagated in captivity or genetically manipulated, severely limiting the scope for experimentation. Over the past twelve years, we have developed and utilized the clonal raider ant, Ooceraea biroi, as a new model species that overcomes many of these limitations, allowing us to study social dynamics and underlying mechanisms under controlled laboratory conditions. Our work has led to a deeper understanding of how ants within a colony assume distinct behavioural roles and efficiently divide labour, how they communicate, both as adults and across different developmental stages, and how these interactions result in collective behaviour. Additionally, our research has shed light on how evolution has repurposed and expanded genetic, neural, and physiological mechanisms from solitary ancestors to produce highly social organisms. In this seminar, I will provide an overview of this work, with a focus on how ants communicate with their nestmates. I will also discuss future directions in our research program aimed at understanding the evolution and organization of insect societies, spanning from genes to neural circuits and behaviour.

Daniel Kronauer studied biology at the University of Würzburg and did his PhD in 2007 at the University of Copenhagen. After postdoctoral employments at the University of Copenhagen and University of Lausanne, he was a Junior Fellow at Harvard University. Since 2011, he holds a professorship at the Rockefeller University, where he studies social evolution and behaviour within complex societies. The sophisticated behaviour, communication, and division of labour within ant colonies make these social insects ideal model systems for this work. His lab uses an integrative approach to understand how natural selection shapes the evolution of insect societies and how social life is regulated at the level of genes, brains, individuals, and colonies.