QUESTIONS
​Some of the questions we are working on include:
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How does the composition of a social group affect the structure of its social network, and the speed and routes of disease transmission within that group?
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How is immune function distributed across members of a social group, and how does it affect predicted and realized disease spread?
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How does infection or immune status affect individual and collective behavior within and across generations?
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How do larvae control the behaviour and reproduction of adults?
{Daniel Kronauer}
SYSTEM
Our study system, the clonal raider ant Ooceraea biroi, combines the rich social biology of ants with a high degree of experimental amenability. This species displays an unusually simple social organization: colonies have no queens, but instead consist of workers that reproduce clonally and synchronously. Synchronized brood development drives stereotypical behavioral cycles of about one month, in which colonies alternate between reproductive and foraging phases. Synchronized reproduction also means that all adults emerge in discrete cohorts. This unique biology provides experimental control over several factors that often affect behavior (age, genotype) at the individual and group levels.
{Daniel Kronauer}
{Yuko Ulrich}
METHODS
We develop and use tools that allow to perform large-scale behavioral experiments (100+ colonies), and software to analyse the behavior of individually-tagged ants in each colony.
In parallel, we develop and use protocols to infect ants with various live pathogens (fungi, bacteria, nematodes) and monitor their transmission to other colony members over time.
Finally, we investigate the proximate drivers of disease-relevant social behavior using experimental manipulations of immune activity, molecular tools, and through collaborations with chemical ecologists.