Jacobus Boomsma

Jacobus J. (Koos)  Boomsma

Dutch

Professor, Head of Dept. of Population Ecology

Phone - +45 35 32 13 40
Fax - +45 35 32 12 50
email - jjboomsma@zi.ku.dk

Department of Population Ecology

Research Interests

I am primarily interested in the population biology of conflict and cooperation, i.e. in the evolutionary ecology (a.o. sex allocation and mating systems) and population genetics of insect societies including their social parasites and in the co-evolutionary study of mutualisms. Important model systems are the fungus-growing ants and termites and their symbionts, Maculinea butterflies and their Myrmica host ants, and Lasius and Formica ants. Additional projects have focused on the population- and breeding structure of vertebrate species in Denmark and insects in Greenland. Most studies involve some combination of field studies, experiments and analysis of DNA markers. My group is increasingly involved in biodiversity and conservation studies and is supported by the Danish Natural Science Research Council (Centre of Social Evolution and Symbiosis), an EU Research-training network (INSECTS) that I coordinate, and various other EU network grants and individual Marie Curie fellowships.

Selected Publications

bullet

Aanen, D.K., P. Eggleton, C. Rouland-Lefèvre, T. Guldberg-Frøslev, S. Rosendahl & J.J. Boomsma (2002) The evolution of fungus-growing termites and their mutualists. Proceedings of the National Academy of the United States of America 99, 14887-14892.

bullet

Boomsma, J.J. and Nachman, G. (2002) Analysis of sex ratios in social insects. In: Hardy, I.C.W. (ed.) Sex ratios: concepts and research methods, p.93-111. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK.

bullet

Boomsma, J.J., J. Nielsen, L. Sundström, N.J. Oldham, J. Tentschert, H.C. Petersen and E.D. Morgan (2003) Informational constraints on optimal sex allocation in ants. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences U.S.A. 100, 8799-8804.

bullet

Hughes, W.O.H., J. Eilenberg & J.J. Boomsma (2002) Trade-offs in group living: transmission and disease resistance in leaf-cutting ants. Proceedings of the Royal Society, London B. 269, 1811-1819.

bullet

Hughes, W.O.H., S.R. Sumner, S. van Borm & J.J. Boomsma (2003). Worker caste polymorphism is genetically controlled in a leaf-cutting ant. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences U.S.A. 100, 9394-9397.

bullet

Sumner, S., D.R. Nash & J.J. Boomsma (2003). The adaptive significance of inquiline parasite workers. Proceedings of the Royal Society, London B. 270, 1315-1322.

bullet

Van Borm, S., A. Buschinger, J.J. Boomsma & J. Billen (2002) Tetraponera ants have gut symbionts related to nitrogen-fixing root-nodule bacteria. Proceedings of the Royal Society, London B. 269, 2023-2027.

bullet

Villesen, P., T. Murakami, T.R. Schultz & J.J. Boomsma (2002) Unravelling the transition between single and multiple mating in attine ants. Proceedings of the Royal Society, London B. 269, 1541-1548.

Last updated: 18th of August 2003

Go to my personal homepage

Back to main page