The role of niche construction and evolutionary capacitance for evolvability in the red flour beetle (C01)

• Subject Area: Evolution, Anthropology
• Term: since 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 316099922

Project C01 investigates how individual differences in niche construction activity contribute to the individualised niche. The project specifically addresses how individual immune experience influences niche construction in the gregariously living red flour beetle, Tribolium castaneum, which constructs its niche via stink gland secretions. Using experimental evolution, the project tests whether niche construction in concert with evolutionary capacitance via HSP90 influences evolvability. We will focus on the communication of individual experience via infochemicals, the (epi)genetic underpinnings of adaptation under normal vs. impaired niche construction, and the role of HSP90 for adaptation to temporal niches.

• DFG Programme: CRC/Transregios
• Subproject of: TRR 212: A Novel Synthesis of Individualisation across Behaviour, Ecology and Evolution: Niche Choice, Niche Conformance, Niche Construction (NC3)
• Applicant Institution: Universität Bielefeld
• Project Head: Professor Dr. Joachim Kurtz