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The social insect research group at the Universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus
NB. This page is here only for historical reasons - please see the web site for the Centre for Social Evolution to learn about the latest resaerch on fungus-growing ants and Maculinea butterflies. As many of the links on this page were outdated, they have now all been deactivated.
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| Members of the Social Insect Research Group at the University of Copehagen are shown above enjoying a June day in 2001. |
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| Members of the Social Insect Research Group at the University of Aarhus are shown above enjoying a warm February day in Denmark in 1999. |
Brief details of the researchers involved in work on social insects and large blue butterflies are given below.
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| Duur Aanen |
Postdoctoral Fellow | | Macrotermitinae and Termitomyces: coevolution and population structure. | | Duur comes from the Netherlands, and completed his PhD on evolution of ectomycorrhizal fungi of the Hebeloma crustuliniforme group at the university of Wageningen in 1999. He started working on fungus-growing African termites at Copenhagen in the Autumn of 2000. |
DKAanen@zi.ku.dk | |
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| Thomas Damm Als |
PhD student | | Geographical variation in the ecological and genetic interactions between Maculinea butterflies and their Myrmica ant hosts. | | Thomas grew up near Skive in Denmark. He took his masters degree at the Department of Ecology and Genetics, University of Aarhus, where he currently is doing his PhD. |
thomas.als@biology.au.dk |
www.biology.au.dk/~biotda |
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| Boris Baer |
Postdoctoral Fellow | | Consequences of multiple mating for social insect males. | | Boris grew up close to lake Constanze, Switzerland. He studied Biology at the University of Zurich. For his masters Feeding ecology of the red handed tamarin, he spent 6 months in the tropical rainforest of French Guyana, after which he returned to Zurich for his PhD "The importance of genetic variability as a defence against parasites" carried out at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), where he worked on bumblebees and their parasites. After a first Postdoc in the same Institute working on the mating behaviour of bumblebees he got a two year Marie Curie Individual fellowship to join the crew in Copenhagen, where he is mainly interested in investigating the conflicts between males and females induced by female multiple mating. |
BCBaer@zi.ku.dk |
www.ki.ku.dk/personal/bcbaer/ |
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| Dorte Bekkevold |
Former masters student | | Kin structure and social parasitism in Acromyrmex echinatior | | Dorte took her degree at the University of Aarhus in 1998 based on an MSc. thesis describing various aspects of reproduction in the leaf-cutter ant Acromyrmex echinatior and in that of the social parasite Acromyrmex insinuator. She is currently working on the genetics of salmonid fish at Silkeborg, Denmark. |
dorte.bekkevold@biology.au.dk | |
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| Jacobus J. "Koos" Boomsma |
Professor | | Main interests: Sex allocation, Mating system evolution, Host-parasite and mutualist co-evolution, Social Insects, Conservation. | | Koos grew up in Rotterdam and moved to Amsterdam to take his degree in Biology. His PhD thesis (1982) addressed various aspects of the ecology of ants in coastal dune systems. For a short while he was involved in research on the ecology of leaf mining insects, before moving to Utrecht, Oxford and Cornell for postdoctoral work on sex allocation in social insects. He moved to Aarhus in 1990, and moved again in 1999 to become professor in population ecology at the Zoological Institute of the University of Copenhagen. |
JJBoomsma@zi.ku.dk |
www.zi.ku.dk/personal/jjboomsma/mainpage.htm |
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| Libeth Børgesen |
Senior Research Scientist | | Mechanisms of social regulation within colonies of the pharaoh’s ant, Monomorium pharaonis. | | Lisbeth divides her time between ant work and library work in the Danish State Library in Copenhagen |
lwb@dnlb.dk | |
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| Jeanette Bot |
Former PhD student | | Social structure, fungus culturing efficiency and defence against pathogens in the leaf-cutting ant Acromyrmex octospinosus. | | Jeanette comes from the Netherlands. She studied biology at the Free University in Amsterdam. One of the projects she did for her MSc took place in Aarhus, where she studied leaf-cutter ants for 6 months financed by an ERASMUS grant. She enjoyed that project so much that she decided to come back to Aarhus to do her PhD, funded by an EU-TMR Marie Curie fellowship. She completed her PhD in autumn 2000, and has just been appointed to a postdoctoral position at Leiden University in the Netherlands. |
jeanette_bot@hotmail.com | |
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| Michiel "Mischa" Dijkstra |
PhD student | | The expression and regulation of queen-worker and worker-worker conflict in fungus-growing ants. | | Mischa comes from the Netherlands, where he completed his undergraduate degree. He joined the Copenhagen group in 2000 to do his PhD. |
MJDijkstra@zi.ku.dk | |
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| Jane Frydenberg |
Leader, DNA laboratory, Aarhus | | Main interests: Use of microsatellite DNA markers to investigate paternity in fungus-growing ants, Population genetics. | | Jane is our DNA guru at the University of Aarhus. Without her help very little work could be done on genetics at Aarhus, and what could be done would take at least twice as long! |
jane.frydenberg@biology.au.dk | |
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| Pia Gertsch |
Postdoctoral Fellow | | Evolution of queen number, queen mating frequency, and social parasitism in ant genus Lasius. | | Pia is a Finn, but is slowly migrating southwards, having completed her undergraduate degree in Helsinki and her PhD at the University of Uppsala in Sweden. She joined the Copenhagen group in late 2000 |
PJGertsch@zi.ku.dk | |
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| Anne-Marie Hansen |
Technician | | Care and maintenance of animals. | | Anne-Marie is indispensable, as she's the one who look after everyone's ants when no-one else will. |
AMWHansen@zi.ku.dk | |
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| Bill Hughes |
Postdoctoral Fellow | | The effects of multiple-mating on disease resistance in fungus-growing ants. | | Bill grew up in London, did his degree at Bangor in Wales and his Masters degree at Silwood Park, UK. He carried out his PhD at the University of Southampton, investigating the alarm behaviour of grass-cutting ants and the potential for using alarm pheromone compounds to enhance the attractiveness of bait for their control. After a short postdoc at Southampton on host location by codling moth larvae, he returned to working on leaf-cutting ants in January 2001 when he began a 2 year Marie Curie fellowship at the University of Copenhagen. |
WOHHughes@zi.ku.dk | |
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| Henning Bang Madsen |
Technician | | Main interests: Bee diversity in Denmark | | Henning is a keen entomologist, and is currently working on a checklist of the Danish bees to repolace the last one, which was produced in 1921! I don't know where he manges to find time for this, because his lab and field assistance keeps him pretty busy. |
hbmadsen@zi.ku.dk | |
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| Sylvia Mathiasen |
Technician | | Main interests: DNA markers, ant care and baking | | Sylvia originally comes from the USA, but we try not to hold that against her. She manages to keep the rest of us (relatively) sane with her help in the lab and her chocolate brownies. |
SMathiasen@zi.ku.dk | |
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| David Nash |
Research Associate | | Specificity and communication in interactions between Maculinea butterflies and their Myrmica ant hosts. | | David grew up near Oxford in England. He took a degree in Zoology at Oxford University, where he also did his doctorate on Australian lycaenid butterflies and ants. David has worked as a post-doc at Silwood park, UK, the University of Bath, UK, and the University of Bern, Switzerland studying leaf-mining moths, ants and fleas respectively. He had the opportunity to return to his first love - the lycaenid butterflies - when he was awarded a two year EU-TMR Marie Curie postdoctoral fellowship in Aarhus at the beginning of 1998. In 2000 he continued this work at the University of Copenhagen, funded by a grant from the Carlsberg foundation, and is currently being employed by the University of Copenhagen as a research associate, still working on the same system. |
DRNash@zi.ku.dk |
www.zi.ku.dk/personal/drnash/ |
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| Diethe Ortius |
Former postdoctoral fellow | | Multiple mating and chemical disease defence in the leaf-cutting ant Acromyrmex octospinosus. | | Diethe was born and brought up in the mostly German part of Romania, Transilvania, until 1979 when she emigrated to Germany with her family. She studied biology at the University of Würzburg and started working on slave-making ants during her masters thesis. Work on ants continued during her doctorate at the same University, with a focus on reproductive conflicts and sociogenetic colony structure of a North American ant. She stuck to studying ants when taking up an EU-TMR network postdoctoral position at the University of Aarhus in spring 1997, though moving from temperate species to a tropical leaf-cutter ant species. In July 1999 she moved back to Germany, and she started a new project on the phylogeography of Leptothoracine ants at the University of Regensburg in 2000. |
diethilde.ortius-lechner@biologie.uni-regensburg.de | |
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| Bo Vest Pedersen |
Associate Professor | | Phylogeny and population genetics of bumblebees and honeybees. | | Bo Vest is using various nuclear and mitovhondrial DNA markers to examine several aspects of bee and bumblebee genetics, particularly the conservation of the native western european honeybee. |
bvpedersen@zi.ku.dk | |
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| Michael Poulsen |
Masters student | | Caste differences in the defence of Acromyrmex octospinosus workers against parasites and pathogens. | | Michael carried out his final year project, investigating the distribution of worker castes in the fungus gardens of Acromyrmex octospinosus and their defence against parasites and pathogens, in 1999. He continued this research for his masters degree, which he obtained in Spring 2001. |
michael.poulsen@biology.au.dk | |
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| Seirian Sumner |
Postdoctoral fellow | | Mating frequency and social structure in the socially parasitic ant, Acromyrmex insinuator. | | Seirian hails from Wales. She studied Zoology as an undergraduate at University College London and remained there to do her doctorate. She examined reproductive conflicts in stenogastrine wasps, with particular attention to testing models of reproductive skew. She joined the Danish crowd in January 2000, as an EU postdoc. |
SRSumner@zi.ku.dk | |
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| Palle Villesen |
PhD student | | Evolution of Mating Systems in the Fungus Growing Ants | | Palle grew up near Aarhus, Denmark. He took his masters degree at the University of Aarhus, where he is currently doing his PhD. |
palle.villesen@biology.au.dk |
www.biology.au.dk/~biopv |
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Collaboration
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The INSECTS network From 2001 until 2004, Koos Boomsma , is co-ordinator of the INSECTS network, funded by the European Union, on "INtegreated Studies of the EConomy of insecT Societies". This is a research network involving eight European research groups, each of which works on some aspect of the evolution of social insects. Much of the research carried out at the universities of Aarhus and Copenhagen is in collaboration with these research groups, allowing us to share expertise, equipment and facilities that would be unavailable to any one institute. The INSECTS network on social evolution has its own dedicated web site, where more detailed information on its structure and activities can be found. Click here for more details. The institutions involved in the network are: |
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The University of Copenhagen, Denmark |
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The University of Firenze, Italy |
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The University of Keele, UK |
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The University of Regensburg, Germany |
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The University of Sheffield, UK |
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Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zürich, Switzerland |
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The EU-TMR Network on Social Evolution From 1996 until 2000, Koos Boomsma , formerly at the University of Aarhus and now at the University of Copenhagen, was co-ordinator of the TMR (Training and Mobility of Researchers) network, funded by the European Union, on "Social Evolution: An Integrated Study of the Effects of Kinship, Communication, Productivity and Disease". This was a research network involving seven European research groups, each of which works on some aspect of the evolution of social insects. Much of the research carried out at the universities of Aarhus and Copenhagen has been in collaboration with these research groups, allowing us to share expertise, equipment and facilities that would be unavailable to any one institute. The EU-TMR network on social evolution has its own dedicated web site, where more detailed information on its structure and activities can be found. Click here for more details. The institutions involved in the network are: |
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The University of Aarhus, Denmark |
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The University of Firenze, Italy |
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The University of Keele, UK |
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The University of Sheffield, UK |
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The University of Uppsala, Sweden |
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The University of Würzburg, Germany |
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Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zürich, Switzerland |
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| Other Collaborations In addition to the members of the EU-TMR network, researchers at the University of Copenhagen and Aarhus enjoy collaborating with many different researchers from different parts of the world. Recent and current collaborators include: |
Johan Billen
Zoological Institute K. U. Leuven, Naamsestraat 59, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium. |
Cameron Currie
Dept. of Botany, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 3B2, Canada. |
Else Fjerdingstad
Department of Genetics, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Victoria 3083, Australia. |
Ulrich Mueller
Integrative Biology, Patterson Laboratories, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA.
home page: http://www.biosci.utexas.edu/IB/faculty/mueller.htm |
Jes Søe Pedersen
Institut d'Ecologie, Laboratoire de Zoologie et d'Ecologie Animale, Bâtiment de Biologie, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
home page: www.unil.ch/izea/people/jpedersen.html |
Steve Rehner
Department of Biology, Edificio Julio Garcia Diaz, University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico 00931
home page: www.cnnet.clu.edu/biol/facultad/rehner.html |
Ted Schultz
Department of Entomology, NMNH MRC 165, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC 20560, USA. |
| The unofficial Maculinea research network Following a meeting in Wageningen, the Netherlands in November 1996, an unofficial network of researchers working on large blue butterflies was established. This group keeps in close contact and exchanges information on research and developments in the Maculinea world. The group, or at least its unofficial co-ordinators, Irma Wynhoff and Jan van der Made, also produces occasional newsletters, which are published on the world wide web as well as on paper. The following members of the unofficial Maculinea research network are or have recently been closely involved with research on large blue butterflies at the University of Aarhus: |
Per Douwes
Department Systematic Zoology, Lund University, Helgonavägen 3, 223 62 Lund, Sweden.
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Hans van Dyck
Department of Biology (U.I.A.), University of Antwerp, Universiteitsplein 1, B-2610 Antwerp, Belgium |
Edyta Figurny-Puchalska
Bee Research Department, Agricultural University, Al. 29-go Listopada 52, 31-425 Kraków, Poland. |
Jeremy Thomas, Graham Elmes and Judith Wardlaw
ITE Furzebrook Research Station, Wareham, Dorset BH20 5AS, UK. |
Irma Wynhoff and Jan van der Made
Dutch Butterfly Conservation, P.O. Box 506, NL 6700 AM Wageningen, The Netherlands
web pages: www.bos.nl/vlinderstichting |
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