Differentiation, Communication, and Emergence in Ant Societies

The members of Dr. Kronauer's lab want to understand how insect societies have evolved and how they are organized. In particular, they are interested in how individuals respond to social cues on a molecular and behavioral level, and how local interactions between "simple" individuals give rise to complex group-level phenomena. They study these topics using ants as model systems, in the hope to gain novel insights into the fundamental mechanisms that underlie social behavior and biological complexity.