Current work
Does trophallactic fluid mediate social conflict?
A typical ant colony consists of a queen, workers, and brood. But a colony’s social environment may change when the ratios of these individuals varies. How does the colony’s social environment impact the contents of their social circulatory system?
To answer this question, we create different conditions based on the presence or absence of the queen and the presence or absence of larvae. We collect trophallactic fluid from each social environment over time in order to observe if there is any difference between conditions in terms of the abundance level of endogenous proteins in trophallactic fluid.
Researcher: Kader Varli, Sanja Hakala
