ERC Starting Grant 2018

Disease risk and Immune StratEgies in SociAl InSEcts – DISEASE

In this 5-year project, we will use ant colonies as a model to study disease transmission in groups using an experimental approach. The aim will be to understand how social organisation influences the risk of transmission of disease between individuals, and how this in turn affects their need to invest in immunity. To this end, we will use a variety of methods ranging from automated behavioural tracking to gene expression analysis to understand how ant colonies adjust their disease defences depending on the group’s architectural and social complexity, and on the risk of encountering pathogens.

Two PhD and two post-doc positions will open in spring 2019 at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. If you are interested in joining the team, please email your CV and a brief description of your research interests to Nathalie.Stroeymeyt@gmail.com

This project will be funded by the European Research Council under the Horizon 2020 funding program.