Parenting on a corpse: what family life and immunity teach us about social evolution and the keys to the carrion kingdom
Presenting person: Dr. Maximilian Körner, Evolutionary Animal Ecology, BayCEER (Homepage)Th. 2025-06-26 (12:30-14:00), H6, Geo
The study of social evolution remains one of the central topics of evolutionary biology. Sociality is a powerful phenomenon present across the animal kingdom – yet most species live solitarily. Despite extensive study, many of the ecological and behavioral mechanisms governing the process of social evolution remain poorly understood – are they driver, hindrance, or double-edged swords? For example, are bacteria and other microbes a reason to stay away from others, or can they bring families together? Or how can cooperation prevail in the face of conflict over tasks that do not actually need doing? These topics are usually discussed in the context of relatively advanced or obligately social structures, such as families in birds or eusocial insect societies. In my talk I want to present work aiming to shed light on unanswered questions during early social evolution in animals that exhibit complex social behaviors but do not require them to survive, namely subsocial Nicrophorus burying beetles. These beetles breed and feed on a highly contested resource, small vertebrate carcasses, by collective efforts to monopolize the carcass and transform it into an edible nursery. They can teach us about the merits and dangers of a social lifestyle which is adapted to deal with the high-risk, high-reward resource the beetles reproduce on. My work demonstrates how Nicrophorus have carved their carrion niche through sociality, and their individual and social immune systems. I also show how breeding pairs negotiate the distribution of the workload among each other, to what degree individuals vary amongst each other in their care, and what other benefits and limitations the adaptations to this lifestyle can entail. My talk aims to give an overview over these fascinating systems, and what lessons they can teach us on the evolution of social systems across the animal kingdom.
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