Education and Employment
| Junior Fellow | Harvard University | Jul 2008 – present |
| Harvard Society of Fellows / Museum of Comparative Zoology Labs |
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| Post-doc | University of Lausanne | Apr – Jun 2008 |
| Post-doc | University of Copenhagen | Apr 2007 – Mar 2008 |
| PhD | University of Copenhagen | Dec 2003 – Mar 2007 |
| “Army ants – a study in molecular ecology and evolution” | ||
| Supervisor: Koos Boomsma | ||
| Research Assistant | University of Würzburg | Jun 2003 – Nov 2003 |
| Biology Diploma | University of Würzburg | Oct 1999 – Apr 2003 |
| “Molecular phylogenetics and the evolution of slavery in honey ants (genus Myrmecocystus)” |
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| Supervisors: Bert Hölldobler and Jürgen Gadau | ||
| Graduate Student | Duke University | Jul 2000 – Jul 2001 |
| Biology Prediploma | University of Heidelberg | Oct 1997 – Oct 1999 |
| Civil Service | University Hospital, Heidelberg | Sep 1996 – Sep 1997 |
| Abitur | Hölderlin Gymnasium, Heidelberg | 1996 |
Research Interests
Insect societies are socially integrated to such an extent that they are often portrayed as superorganisms in which different morphological or behavioral castes have different functions, similar to the different tissues of an organism. The networks of mutually attuned specialists have enabled social insects to evolve to ecological dominance in many terrestrial ecosystems. Most fundamentally, some individuals, the workers, often completely forego egg-laying and dedicate their lives to colony maintenance, while others, the queens, monopolize reproduction. For natural selection to produce and maintain this extreme division of labor, it is necessary that workers help to raise related rather than unrelated individuals. By doing so, copies of their genetic material are passed on to the next generations indirectly through the offspring of their relatives. However, while the cells in an organism are clones with identical reproductive optima, the individuals in insect societies are not. Therefore, competing interests between different parties generate social conflicts that need to be resolved or suppressed if colony life is to be maintained efficiently. Affiliations and conflict outcome are partly determined by the kin-structure, which in turn is the result of the mating system and the number of reproductive individuals in a colony.
I am using ants as model systems in combination with molecular tools to study the evolution of insect societies. Most of my recent research has focused on army ants, a taxonomically diverse group of ants with a highly specialized life-history. Army ants hunt and retrieve prey in groups, they frequently relocate the entire colony, and they reproduce by colony fission, i.e. they do not produce winged queens that go on mating flights as do most other ants. Interestingly, army ant queens mate with many males, which greatly decreases the relatedness among colony workers. I have been working towards understanding the social consequences of this rare and derived mating system in social insects, and its adaptive significance in the light of the specialized life-history of army ants.
Furthermore, I am studying the regulation of long-term cyclic behavior and physiology in ants. Especially some army ants undergo stereotypical cycles in which they alternate between a statary phase, in which eggs are produced and colonies do not emigrate, and a nomadic phase, in which the colony contains larvae and frequently moves. The ultimate goal is to understand how social factors regulate individual behavior and physiology, and how the long-term rhythm of the colony phenotype emerges from cyclic changes in individual behavior and physiology.
I am also involved in work on the evolution of division of labor and caste polymorphism in social insects, especially in relation to ecological and other life-history parameters. The general question is how different life-histories select for different caste systems and, in turn, how different caste systems contribute to ecological dominance and taxonomic diversification. These issues are being addressed using molecular phylogenetics in combination with data on caste morphology and ecology.
Photography
I love nature photography and my pictures have been published repeatedly on journal covers, in books, and in popular science articles. They have also been used in the advertisement campaigns of Blackwell Publishing and the Royal Society of London. You can view some photographs by following the link below, and get some sense for the stunning diversity of ants and other Hymenoptera.
Link to my photography page
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Publications
(Please contact me via email for reprints)
Baer, B., den Boer, S. P. A., Kronauer, D. J. C., Nash, D. R., Boomsma, J. J. (2009): Fungus gardens of the leafcutter ant Atta colombica function as egg nurseries for the snake Leptodeira annulata. Insectes Sociaux, in press.
Kronauer, D. J. C. (2009): Wanderameisen - räuberische Nomaden der Tropen. Reptilia, in press.
Kronauer, D. J. C. (2008): Featured insect: Trap-jaw ant, Daceton armigerum (Latreille). American Entomologist 54 (4): 201.
Kronauer, D. J. C. (2008): Recent advances in army ant biology (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Myrmecological News 12: 51-65.
Kronauer, D. J. C. (2008): Mutualism: Wasp keeps watchdogs to protect young. Dispatch. Current Biology 18: R866-R868.
Kronauer, D. J. C. (2008): Genomic imprinting and kinship in the social Hymenoptera: what are the predictions? Journal of Theoretical Biology 254: 737-740.
Boomsma, J. J., Kronauer, D. J. C., Pedersen, J. S. (2009): The evolution of social insect mating systems. In: Gadau, J., Fewell, J. (eds): Organization of insect societies - from genomes to socio-complexity. Harvard University Press.
Kronauer, D. J. C. (2008): Hærmyrer – nomadiske røvere på jagt i troperne. Naturens Verden. 2008 (6): 34-40. Cover story.
Berghoff, S. M.*, Kronauer, D. J. C.*, Edwards, K. J., Franks, N. R. (2008): Dispersal and population structure of a New World predator, the army ant Eciton burchellii. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 21: 1125-1132. *These authors contributed equally. Cover story.
Schöning, C., Gotwald, W. H. Jr., Kronauer, D. J. C., Vilhelmsen, L. (2008): Taxonomy of the African army ant Dorylus gribodoi Emery, 1892 (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) – new insights from DNA sequence data and morphology. Zootaxa 1749: 39-52.
Ugelvig, L. V., Drijfhout, F. P., Kronauer, D. J. C., Boomsma, J. J., Pedersen, J. S., Cremer, S. (2008): The introduction history of invasive garden ants in Europe: integrating genetic, chemical and behavioural approaches. BMC Biology 6:11.
Hughes, D. P., Kronauer, D. J. C., Boomsma, J. J. (2008): Extended phenotype: nematodes turn ants into bird-dispersed fruits. Dispatch. Current Biology 18: R294-R295.
Kronauer, D. J. C., Boomsma, J. J. (2007): Multiple queens means fewer mates. Current Biology 17: R753-R755.
Jaffe, R.*, Kronauer, D. J. C.*, Kraus, F. B., Boomsma, J. J., Moritz, R. F. (2007): A genetic component to worker caste determination in the army ant Eciton burchellii. Biology Letters 3: 513-516. *These authors contributed equally.
Kronauer, D. J. C., Schöning, C., Vilhelmsen, L. B., Boomsma, J. J. (2007): A molecular phylogeny of Dorylus army ants provides evidence for multiple evolutionary transitions in foraging niche. BMC Evolutionary Biology 7: 56.
Kronauer, D. J. C., Rodríguez Ponce, E. R., Lattke, J. E., Boomsma, J. J. (2007): Six weeks in the life of a reproducing army ant colony: male parentage and colony behaviour. Insectes Sociaux 54: 118-123.
Kronauer, D. J. C., Johnson, R. A., Boomsma, J. J. (2007): The evolution of multiple mating in army ants. Evolution 61: 413-422. Cover story.
Kronauer, D. J. C., Gadau, J., Boomsma, J. J. (2007): Characterization of 12 new microsatellite loci in Aenictus and Neivamyrmex army ants. Molecular Ecology Notes 7: 688-690.
Kronauer, D. J. C., Boomsma, J. J. (2007): Do army ant queens re-mate later in life? Insectes Sociaux 54: 20-28.
Kronauer, D. J. C. (2007): Army ants – a study in molecular ecology and evolution. PhD thesis. University of Copenhagen.
Kronauer, D. J. C., Berghoff, S. M., Powell, S., Denny, A. J., Edwards, K. J., Franks, N. R., Boomsma, J.J. (2006): A reassessment of the mating system characteristics of the army ant Eciton burchellii. Naturwissenschaften 93: 402-406.
Kronauer, D. J. C., Schöning, C., Boomsma, J. J. (2006): Male parentage in army ants. Molecular Ecology 15: 1147-1151.
Kronauer, D. J. C., Bergmann, P., Mercer, J., Russell, A. (2005): A phylogeographically distinct and deep divergence in the widespread Neotropical turnip-tailed gecko, Thecadactylus rapicauda. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 34: 431-437.
Kronauer, D. J. C. (2004): Trophic parasitism of a wasp (Hymenoptera: Ampulicidae: Ampulex sp.) on the ant Ectatomma ruidum (Roger, 1860) (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Myrmecological News 6: 77-78.
Kronauer, D. J. C., Schöning, C., Pedersen, J. S., Boomsma, J. J., Gadau, J. (2004): Extreme queen-mating frequency and colony fission in African army ants. Molecular Ecology 13: 2381-2388.
Kronauer, D. J. C., Hölldobler, B., Gadau, J. (2004): Phyolgenetics of the new world honey ants (genus Myrmecocystus) estimated from mitochondrial DNA sequences. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 32: 416-421.
Kronauer, D. J. C., Boomsma, J. J., Gadau, J. (2004): Microsatellite markers for the driver ant Dorylus (Anomma) molestus. Molecular Ecology Notes 4: 289-290.
Kronauer, D. J. C., Gadau, J., Hölldobler, B. (2003): Genetic evidence for intra- and interspecific slavery in honey ants (genus Myrmecocystus). Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B 270: 805-810.
Kronauer, D. J. C., Gadau, J. (2002): Isolation of polymorphic microsatellite markers in the new world honey ant Myrmecocystus mimicus. Molecular Ecology Notes 2: 540-541.
Kronauer, D. (2000): Die Herpetofauna eines Gummibaumes (Ficus maximus) im Karibischen Tiefland Costa Ricas. Herpetofauna 22: 5-10.
Kronauer, D. (1999): Anmerkungen zur Herpetofauna Costa Ricas. Elaphe 7: 76-77.
Links
Present Affiliations
Harvard Society of Fellows
http://www.socfell.fas.harvard.edu/
Naomi Pierce’s group at the Museum of Comparative Zoology Labs / Harvard University
http://www.oeb.harvard.edu/faculty/pierce/people/Naomi/Naomi.html
Former Affiliations
Chair of Behavioral Physiology and Sociobiology at the University of Würzburg
http://zoo2.biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de/
Bert Hölldobler and Jürgen Gadau, my former supervisors, are now at Arizona State University / School of Life Sciences
http://sols.asu.edu/people/faculty.php?view=oisb
Centre for Social Evolution and Koos Boomsma’s group at the University of Copenhagen
http://www.bi.ku.dk/cse/
Laurent Keller’s group at the University of Lausanne
http://www.unil.ch/dee/page6763.html
Trip Reports (with Frank E. Rheindt)
Thailand
http://www.surfbirds.com/trip_report.php?id=396
Yucatan Peninsula
http://www.surfbirds.com/trip_report.php?id=205
Ants (an elected selection of websites related to ant research)
General
The International Union for the Study of Social Insects:
http://www.iussi.org/
Myrmecological News, a journal entirely devoted to ants:
http://myrmecologicalnews.org/cms/
Antbase – the database for ant taxonomists:
http://www.antbase.org/
AntWeb at the California Academy of Sciences – beautiful pictures of pinned specimens and much more:
http://www.antweb.org/index.jsp
The Ant Course organized by Brian Fisher. I took the course in 2004 and can highly recommend it – if you work on ants, the Ant Course is a must!
http://research.calacademy.org/research/entomology/ant_course/
ANeT – an international network for ant research in Asia:
http://homepage.mac.com/dorylus/index.html
Notes from Underground (beyond Russia) by Gordon Snelling:
http://www.notesfromunderground.org/By geographic region
Ants of Costa Rica by Jack Longino – a wealth of information on Costa Rican ants:
http://academic.evergreen.edu/projects/ants/AntsofCostaRica.html
Ants of Australia by Steve Shattuck and Natalie Barnett
http://www.ento.csiro.au/science/ants/default.htm
Ants of the New World by William and Emma Mackay:
http://www.utep.edu/leb/antgenera.htm
Ants of Japan and the Japanese Ant Image Database:
http://ant.edb.miyakyo-u.ac.jp/E/index.html
Ants of the Iberian Peninsula by Kiko Gómez and Xavier Espadaler (in Spanish):
http://www.hormigas.org/
Ants of Malaysia, Mongolia, and Germany by Martin Pfeiffer:
http://homepage.mac.com/dorylus/index.html
Ants of Barro Colorado Natural Monument / Panama by Mike Kaspari:
http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/K/Michael.E.Kaspari-1/K/Michael.E.Kaspari-1/K/Michael.E.Kaspari-1/bcnm_ants_home.htm
Ants of (sub-Saharan) Africa by Brian Taylor:
http://www.antbase.org/ants/africa/antcover.htmBy taxon
Gordon and Roy Snelling’s website on New World army ants:
http://www.armyants.org/
Carl Rettenmeyer’s website on army ant biology:
http://www.armyantbiology.com/
Chris Schmidt’s website on ponerines:
http://www.ponerine.org/
Pheidole working group:
http://academic.evergreen.edu/projects/ants/pheidoleworkinggroup/index.htmCollections
The Entomology Department at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology contains one of the best ant collections in the world:
http://www.mcz.harvard.edu/Departments/Entomology/holdings.html
The ant collection at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History:
http://ripley.si.edu/ent/nmnhtypedb/
PhotographyNeed more ant pictures? Alex Wild’s fantastic website is the place to go!
http://www.myrmecos.net/
Daniel J. C. Kronauer
