KLI Colloquia are informal, public talks that are followed by extensive dissussions. Speakers are KLI fellows or visiting researchers who are interested in presenting their work to an interdisciplinary audience and discussing it in a wider research context. We offer three types of talks:
1. Current Research Talks. KLI fellows or visiting researchers present and discuss their most recent research with the KLI fellows and the Vienna scientific community.
2. Future Research Talks. Visiting researchers present and discuss future projects and ideas togehter with the KLI fellows and the Vienna scientific community.
3. Professional Developmental Talks. Experts about research grants and applications at the Austrian and European levels present career opportunities and strategies to late-PhD and post-doctoral researchers.
- The presentation language is English.
- If you are interested in presenting your current or future work at the KLI, please contact the Scientific Director or the Executive Manager.
Event Details
Topic description / abstract:
A multidisciplinary project titled “Voluntary self-sacrifice in exploding ants: a mechanism to defend coevolved microbiomes?” explores the evolution, phylogeny, and ecology of the “exploding ants” of the Southeast Asian Colobopsis cylindrica (COCY) group. These ants are best known for their unique defensive behaviour: In territorial combat, minor workers can rupture their integument to release the sticky and toxic contents of their enlarged mandibular gland reservoirs, thereby killing their rivals and themselves. Such voluntary self-sacrifice (autothysis) is very rare in nature and hitherto only known in social insects.
In addition to their “explosive” workers, COCY ants possess a second helper caste termed soldiers or “doorkeepers”. With their enlarged and truncated heads, these animals close nest entrances (phragmosis) to defend the colony against intruders. In rare cases, morphologically aberrant individuals infected by mermithid nematodes have also been discovered. The specialized structures of the respective castes, as well as the developmental perturbations caused by parasites are being investigated within the project, in hope of shedding light on the evolution and development of these enigmatic insects.
Biographical note:
Alice Laciny (*1989) is a PhD student at the Department of Theoretical Biology at the University of Vienna and is currently completing her thesis in the course of the WWTF project “Voluntary self-sacrifice in exploding ants: a mechanism to defend coevolved microbiomes?” at the Natural History Museum Vienna. She has been fascinated by insects from an early age and recently became president of the Austrian Entomologists' Association. Her scientific interests include myrmecology, parasitology, evolutionary developmental biology, and caste-characterization of social insects via morphological, statistical, and behavioural methods.
