Life history evolution and ageing in termites

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Judith Korb
• Subject Area: Sensory and Behavioural Biology ; Evolution, Anthropology
• Term: from 2014 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 256580001

Why and how do organisms age? A central concept that integrates this ultimate and proximate approach towards evolutionary questions is the idea of a fecundity/longevity trade-off that is almost universal in multicellular organisms: increased fecundity is associated with direct and indirect costs which reduce longevity as a consequence. Social insects (such as the honeybee, ants, and termites) are striking exceptions: here the most fecund individuals, the queens (in termites also the kings), are the most long-lived organisms with a lifespan up to two orders of magnitude higher than those of the non-reproducing workers. We propose to study ageing and the fecundity/longevity trade-off in termites at the proximate and ultimate level. Our first objective will be to analyse molecular ageing pathways using newly available genomic data to test for differences to other organisms, in particular social Hymenoptera and non-social insects. Additionally, we test whether increased investment in molecular maintenance can explain the long life of queens. In our second objective we combine the proximate and ultimate approach and experimentally investigate several biotic and abiotic factors for their influence on ageing and fecundity. By measuring fitness parameters and physiological ageing markers in queens and workers, we will test whether these factors affect queens and workers equally. Through the integration of a proximate with an ultimate perspective and by using molecular genomic tools as well as behavioural/ecological experiments, our project aims at providing a fuller understanding of ageing and life history evolution.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants