Dr Michael Lattorff is interested in certain characteristics of insect societies, particularly the reproductive division of labour and defences against pathogens. He is interested in: 1) worker reproduction in order to understand the evolution of the sterile worker caste, 2) the genetic basis of disease resistance, 3) plasticity in the activation of immune responses, 4) the evolutionary forces driving immune gene evolution at the molecular level, 5) social context-dependent gene expression changes in social insects, 6) feedback of the microbiome to the health of insects, 7) utilization of microbiomes for environmental monitoring, 8) agroecological methods to support ecosystem services, and 9) pollination biology and plant-pollinator-interactions.
Research Discipline(s)
Brief Biography (English)