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Sylvia Cremer
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| Dr. Sylvia Cremer Research Associate Evolution, Behaviour & Genetics |
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Living in social groups has many benefits, but also increases disease transmission rates between individuals. To counteract this risk, social insects have evolved collective disease defence strategies. These Social Immune Systems result from the co-operation of the individual group members to combat infection of the colony. They comprise behavioural, physiological and organisational adaptations of the colony. |
Study Questions
What are the costs and benefits of social immunity for individual group members?
How are collective defences organised between group members?
How do ants recognise parasites and diseased group members?
Study Organisms
the invasive garden ant, Lasius neglectus  |
the facultatively clonal ant Platythyrea punctata  |
the male dimorphic ant Cardiocondyla obscurior  |
Study Methods
Experimental infection |
Behavioural  |
Physiological  |
Chemical analysis (GC-MS)  |
Recent Publications
Invited Reviews
Cremer, S. & Sixt, M. (2008) Analogies in the evolution of individual and social immunity. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society London B, doi: 10.1098/rstb.2008.0166
Cremer, S., Armitage, S.A.O. & Schmid-Hempel, P. (2007) Social Immunity. Current Biology 17, R693-R702
Research Papers
Cremer, S., D’Ettorre, P., Drijfhout, F.P., Sledge, M.F., Turillazzi, S. & Heinze, J. (2008) Imperfect chemical female mimicry in males of the ant Cardiocondyla obscurior, Naturwissenschaften 95: 1101-1105
Suefuji, M., Cremer, S., Oettler, J. & Heinze, J. (2008) Queen number influences the timing of the sexual production in colonies of Cardiocondyla ants. Biology Letters doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2008.0355
Ugelvig, L.V., Drijfhout, F.P., Kronauer, D.J.C., Boomsma, J.J., Pedersen, J.S. & Cremer, S. (2008) The introduction history of invasive garden ants in Europe: integrating genetic, chemical and behavioural approaches, BMC Biology, 6 (11), doi:10.1186/1741-7007-6-11 pdf
Ugelvig. L.V. & Cremer, S. (2007) Social prophylaxis: group interaction promotes collective immunity in ant colonies. Current Biology 17, 1967-1971
Hughes, D.P & Cremer, S. (2007) Plasticity in anti-parasite behaviours and its suggested role in invasion biology. Animal Behaviour 74, 1593-1599
Selected older Publications
Schrempf, A., Heinze, J. & Cremer, S. (2005): Sexual cooperation: mating increases longevity in ant queens. Current Biology 15, 267-270
Cremer, S. and Heinze, J. (2003): Stress grows wings: environmental induction of winged dispersal males in Cardiocondyla ants. Current Biology 13, 219-223
Cremer, S., Sledge, M.F. and Heinze, J. (2002): Male ants disguised by the queen’s bouquet. Nature, 419, 897
Cremer, S. and Heinze, J. (2002): Adaptive production of fighter males: ant queens adjust the sex ratio under local mate competition. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B 269, 417-422
Research Dissemination
Cremer, S. and Boomsma, J.J. (2005): The drawback of mobility: invasive species in a globalised world. Proceedings of the Marie Curie Conference Pisa Sept. 2005 pdf
Cremer, S. and Heinze, J. (2003): Zwischen Hochzeitsflug und Brudermord: reproduktive Taktiken bei Ameisenmännchen. Blick in die Wissenschaft, Heft 15, 12. Jahrgang pdf
Complete List of Publications
Current projects
Funding sources
DFG (German Science Foundation), European Commission, Alexander-von-Humboldt Foundation, German Ethological Society, Frauenförderung der Universität Regensburg
Previous Research
| Autumn 2006 | Junior Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin |
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| 2002 - 2006 | Postdoc at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark Evolution of invasiveness in the garden ant, Lasius neglectus see |
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| 1998 - 2002 | PhD at the University of Regensburg, Germany Evolution of alternative reproductive tactics in Cardiocondyla ants |
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