Rektor Linda Nielsen Københavns Universitet Nørregade 10 1017 ...

Bilag 2 til Danmarks Forskningspolitiske Råds høringsbrev om kernefelter i
dansk forskning
– Skabelon til beskrivelse af og begrundelse for udpegning af kernefelter
For så vidt angår besvarelserne under punkt C, bedes de udformet på grundlag af den
nærmere beskrivelse af indikatorerne i bilag 1.
A. Beskrivelse af kernefeltet:
A.1 Institutionens navn: Biologisk Institut
A.2 Kontaktperson: Professor Jacobus J. Boomsma
A.3 Tlf.: 353 21340
A.4 E-mail: jjboomsma@bi.ku.dk
A.5 Kernefeltets navn: Social Evolution
Spirende kernefelt (kryds her): Nuværende kernefelt (kryds her): X
A.6 Fagligt fokus: Insect societies (ants, bees, wasps and termites) have achieved
dramatic examples of division of labour, large-scale food storage, collective defence,
disease control, waste management, husbandry, and agriculture. In doing so, the social
insects have collectively become one of the most dominant animal life forms. They owe
their success to communication systems that allow the efficient flow and use of
information within their colonies and they have evolved effective ways to suppress,
regulate and police internal social conflicts. Natural selection and millions of years of
time have “allowed” the insect societies to “solve” economic problems on a scale
comparable to humans without the help of self-conscious intelligence and cultural
evolution. The ants and termites that have evolved fungus-agriculture are particularly
interesting model systems, as they have also successfully confronted disease problems of
their crops.
The Centre for Social Evolution (CSE), funded by the Danish National Research
Foundation (Grundforskningsfonden)(2005-2010), carries out interdisciplinary studies of
six research themes: 1. Mating system adaptations, 2. Information exchange and
recognition mechanisms, 3. Social parasitism, 4. Defences against infectious diseases, 5.
The evolution and maintenance of invasive supercolonies, 6. Fungus farming and other
symbioses between insect societies and microorganisms. CSE researchers combine
expertise from evolutionary biology, population biology, animal behavio ur, and insect
pathology and use state of the art DNA technology, Gas Chromatography and Mass
Spectrometry. CSE is almost completely (92% of the funding) based at the Institute of
Biology, University of Copenhagen.
A.7 Forskerskoler m.v. Ph.D.students are enrolled in the Biology (KU) Ph.D. school
and in the International School of Biodiversity Sciences (ISOBIS: one of the FUR
initiated Ph.D. Schools with its main office at Aarhus University)
A.8 Myndighedsopgaver og –beredskab: Medlemskab i: 1. Statens Bisygdomsnævn,
som er rådgivende for fødevareministeren og Plantedirektoratet i spørgsmål vedrørende
biavl. 2. Moniteringsudvalget for den Brune Læsøbi (Apis mellifera mellifera) under
fødevareministeren. Endvidere svarer CSE’s medlemmer løbende på mange spørgsmål om
insekter fra bl.a. DR, TV2, lokalradiostationer, Skadedyrslaboratoriet under Danmarks
Jordbrugsforskning.
B. Ke rnefeltets omfang:
B.1 Antal videnskabelige medarbejdere i årsværk: 1 professor, 2 lektorer, 1
forskningslektor (EU Marie Curie Excellence Fellow), 1 ACTAP, 0,2 Seniorforsker (via
DNLB), 1 STENO forskningsadjunkt, 4 Postdocs, 4 TAP.
Dok-id. 354956