Communication and Social Behavior in Ants

Event Details

Type

Friday Lecture Series

Speaker(s)

Daniel Kronauer, Ph.D., Stanley S. and Sydney R. Shuman Assistant Professor and head, Laboratory of Social Evolution and Behavior, The Rockefeller University

Speaker bio(s)

Complex social behavior is a hallmark of human biology. However, it has remained challenging to study in animal models, because classic genetic systems such as rodents and flies only display relatively basic social behaviors. Ants and other social insects, on the other hand, have evolved sophisticated societies and social behaviors, including nestmate recognition and complex communication via chemical cues. The behavior of individual ants is highly contingent on the social environment, giving rise to cooperation and division of labor. In this talk, Dr. Kronauer will discuss recent efforts to develop ants as novel model systems to study the genetic and neurobiological basis of chemical communication and complex social behavior.

Dr. Kronauer studies social evolution and behavior within complex societies, using ants as model systems. He received his diploma in biology from the University of Würzburg in Germany in 2003, where he studied the evolution of social parasitism in honeypot ants with Bert Hölldobler and Jürgen Gadau. He received his Ph.D. in 2007 from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, where he worked with Koos Boomsma on social dynamics in army ants. After a brief postdoctoral assignment at the University of Lausanne, he was elected as a junior fellow to the Harvard Society of Fellows in 2008, and joined The Rockefeller University as assistant professor in 2011. Daniel Kronauer is a 2012 Searle Scholar, a 2013 Kavli Fellow, a 2013 Hirschl/Weill-Caulier Trusts Research Award recipient, a 2014 Klingenstein-Simons Fellow in the Neurosciences, a 2015 Sinsheimer Scholar, a 2015 Pew Biomedical Scholar, and a 2016 Howard Hughes Medical Institute Faculty Scholar. In 2017, a new species of beetle, Nymphister kronaueri, was named after him.

Open to

Public

Host

Michael Young, Ph.D.

Reception

Refreshments, 3:15 p.m. - 3:45 p.m., Abby Lounge

Contact

Justin Sloboda

Phone

(212) 327-7785

Sponsor

Justin Sloboda
(212) 327-7785
jsloboda@rockefeller.edu

Readings

http://librarynews.rockefeller.edu/?p=4596