Good news from the DFG! The SFB-TRR 212 with the title "A Novel Synthesis of Individualisation across Behaviour, Ecology and Evolution: Niche Choice, Niche Conformance, Niche Construction", short "NC3" was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) as one of 15 newly funded collaborative research centers. The SFB was convieved in cooperation with Oliver Krüger from the University of Bielefeld, who is also the speaker of the SFB. Involved IEB members are Claudia Fricke, Jürgen Gadau and Joachim Kurtz (vice speaker). Other involved scientists from the University of Münster are Norbert Sachser, Helene Richter and Sylvia Kaiser from the Department of Behavioural Biology and Ulrich Krohs from the Department of Philosophy.
Next to NC3, another collaborative research center in biology will be newly funded (SFB 1348, speaker Christian Klämbt, Institute of Neurobiology).

Congratulations to everybody involved! We are looking forward to more exiting news from NC³.

For more details visit the press releases of the DFG, the WWU or the University of Bielefeld.

Kwapich et al. published a new paper titled "The ecological and genetic basis of annual worker production in the desert seed harvesting ant, Veromessor pergandei" . For a nice summary of the topic and an interview with Mrs. Kwapich click here.

Foraging is a risky task, in particular for an ant in the desert. Kwapiche et al. (2017) showed that individual colonies of Veromessor pergandei turnover up to 34,000 foragers in their peak foraging months. Overall forager population turned over approximately 20 times during the year, cumulatively returning 3.4 kg of biomass (in ants) per hectare. Surprisingly, colonies where the queen mated with fewer males did better than colonies where the queen mated with multiple males.

CL Kwapich, J Gadau, B Hölldobler The ecological and genetic basis of annual worker production in the desert seed harvesting ant, Veromessor Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 71 (8), 110.