The role of niche construction and evolutionary capacitance for evolvability in the red flour beetle (C01)

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Project C01 investigates how individual differences in niche construction activity contribute to the individualised niche. The project specifically addresses how individual immune experience influences niche construction in the gregariously living red flour beetle, Tribolium castaneum, which constructs its niche via stink gland secretions. Using experimental evolution, the project tests whether niche construction in concert with evolutionary capacitance via HSP90 influences evolvability. We will focus on the communication of individual experience via infochemicals, the (epi)genetic underpinnings of adaptation under normal vs. impaired niche construction, and the role of HSP90 for adaptation to temporal niches.