Email Joan 
Chair and
Harry C. and Olga K. Wiess Professor
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Research Interests
Cooperative alliances have occurred at several important steps in the evolution of life, and have proven evolutionarily and ecologically very successful. Studying how these alliances came to be, how conflicts are subsumed into cooperation, what conflicts remain, and how they influence sociality make up my dominant research interests. Molecular techniques for phylogeny reconstruction, for determining genetic relatedness among cooperators, and for assessing who reproduces within a group have allowed us to make a great deal of progress towards understanding alliances. I have found ample material for study in the several hundred species of social wasps. However, some questions have proven more easily pursued in other organisms, so I also work with stingless bees and with the social amoeba, Dictyostelium discoideum and related species. The social amoeba has the advantage of a very simple social system with only two castes whose division is well understood at the molecular level.
Video Links
- Sackler Colloquia December 2006
Insect societies as divided organisms: The complexities of purpose and cross purpose
Joan Strassmann -
NIH Viedocast Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Evolution and Cooperation
Joan Strassman integrates the approaches of evolutionary and molecular biology to explain what genes regulate cooperative processes, how biological systems control cheating, and how cells recognize non-clonemates.
(scroll down page 19)
Selected Publications (click on title to view PDF)
- Queller, D. C. and Strassmann, J. E. 1998. Kin selection and social insects. BioScience, 48: 165-175.
- Solís, C. R., Hughes, C. R., Klingler, C. J., Strassman, J. E., and Queller, D. C. 1998. Lack of kin discrimination during wasp colony fission. Behavioral Ecology 9:172-176.
- Field, J., Solís, C. R., Queller,D. C., and Strassmann, J. E. 1998. Social and genetic structure of paper wasp cofoundress associations: tests of reproductive skew models. American Naturalist, 151:545-563.
- Peters, J. M., Queller, D. C., Imperatriz-Fonseca, V. L. and Strassmann, J. E. 1998. Microsatellite loci for stingless bees. Molecular Ecology, 7:784-787.
- Strassmann, J. E., Goodnight, K. F., Klingler, C. J. and Queller D. C. 1998. The genetic structure of swarms and the timing of their production in the queen cycles of neotropical wasps. Molecular Ecology, 7:709-718.
- Arévalo, E., Strassmann, J. E., Queller, D. C. 1998 Conflicts of interest in social insects: male production in two species of Polistes. Evolution 52:797-805.
- Wooninck, L., Strassmann, J. E. Fleischer, R. Warner L. L. 1998. Characterization of microsatellite loci in a pelagic spawner: the bluehead wrasse, Thalassoma bifasciatum. Molecular Ecology 7:1613-1614.
- Ezenwa, V. O., Peters, J. M., Hastings, M. D., Zhu, Y., E. Arévalo, Seppä, P. Pedersen, J. S., Zacchi, F. Queller, D. C., and Strassmann, J. E. 1998. Ancient conservation of trinucleotide microsatellite loci in polistine wasps. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 10:168-177.
- Hastings, M. D., Queller, D. C., Eischen, F., and Strassmann, J. E. 1998. Kin selection, relatedness and worker control of reproduction in a large-colony epiponine wasp, Brachygastra mellifica. Behavioral Ecology, 9:573-581.
- Peters, J. M., Queller D. C., Imperatriz-Fonseca, V. L., Roubik, D. W., and Strassmann, J. E. 1999. Mate number, kin selection and social conflicts in stingless bees and honey bees. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London: Series B 266:379-384.
- Ezenwa, V. O., Henshaw, M. Queller, D. C., and Strassmann, J. E. 1998. Patterns of buzz running, a swarm initiation behavior, in the neotropical wasp, Parachartergus colobopterus. Insectes Sociaux, 45:445-455.
- Strassmann, J. E. and Queller,D. C. 1989. Ecological determinants of social evolution. pp. 81-101 IN: M. Breed & R. Page eds. The genetics of social evolution. Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado.
- Strassmann, J. E. 1993. Weak queen or social contract? Nature 363: 502-503.
- Strassmann, J. E., Solís, C. R., Peters, J. M. and Queller, D. C. 1996 Strategies for finding and using highly polymorphic DNA microsatellite loci for studies of genetic relatedness and pedigrees. In Molecular Zoology: Advances, strategies and protocols pp. 163-180 and 528-549. (eds. J. Ferraris & S. Palumbi), Wiley.
- Strassmann, J. E. and Queller D.C. 2001. Selfish responses by clone invaders. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 98: 11839-11841.
- Henshaw, M. T., Strassmann, J. E., and Queller, D. C. 2001. Swarm-founding in the Polistine wasps: the importance of finding many microsatellite loci in studies of adaptation. Molecular Ecology 10: 185-191.
- Peters, J. M., Queller D. C., Imperatriz-Fonseca, V. L., Roubik, D. W., and Strassmann, J. E. 1999. Mate number, kin selection and social conflicts in stingless bees and honey bees. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London: Series B 266:379-384.
- Bernasconi, G. and Strassmann, J. E. 1999. Cooperation among unrelated individuals: the ant foundress case. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 14:477-482.
- Zhu, Y., Queller, D. C., and Strassmann, J. E. 2000. A phylogenetic perspective on sequence evolution in microsatellite loci. Journal of Molecular Evolution 50:324-338.
- Herman, R. A., Queller, D. C., and Strassmann, J. E. 2000 The role of queens in colonies of the swarm-founding wasp Parachartergus colobopterus. Animal Behaviour 59:841-848.
- Henshaw, M. Strassmann, J. E. Quach, S., and Queller D. C. 2000 Male production in Parachartergus colobopterus, a neotropical, swarm-founding wasp. Ethology, Ecology and Evolution 12:161-174
- Queller, D. C., Zacchi, F., Cervo, R., Turillazzi, S., Henshaw, M., Santorelli, L., and Strassmann, J. E. 2000. Unrelated helpers in a social insect. Nature 405:784-787.
- Henshaw, M. T., Strassmann, J. E., and Queller, D. C. 2000. The independent origin of a queen number bottleneck that promotes cooperation in the African swarm-founding wasp, Polybioides tabidus. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 48: 478-483.
- Strassmann, J. E., Zhu, Y., and Queller, D. C. 2000 Altruism and social cheating in the social amoeba, Dictyostelium discoideum. Nature 408:965-967.
- Strassmann, J. E. 2000. Cheaters in bacteria. Nature 406:555-556.
- Strassmann, J. E., Seppä, P., and Queller, D. C. 2000. Absence of within-colony discrimination: foundresses of the social wasp, Polistes carolina, do not prefer their own larvae. Naturwissenschaften 87:266-269.
- Strassmann, J. E. 2001. The rarity of multiple mating by females in the social hymenoptera. Insectes sociaux 48: 1-13.
- Mehdiabadi, NJ, Jack, CN, Farnham, TT, Platt, TG, Kalla, SE, Shaulsky, G, Queller, DC, and Strassmann, JE. 2006. Kin preference in a social microbe. Nature. 442: 881-882
- Kuzdzal-Fick, J.J., Foster, K. R.; Queller, D. C., and Strassmann, J. 2007. Exploiting new terrain: an advantage to sociality in the slime mold Dictyostelium discoideum. Behavioral Ecology. 18: 433-437.
- Strassmann, JE, and Queller, DC. 2007. Insect societies as divided organisms: The complexities of purpose and cross-purpose. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 104:8619-8626.
- Gilbert, OM, Foster, K., Mehdiabadi, NJ, Strassmann, JE, and Queller, DC. 2007. High relatedness maintains multicellular cooperation in a social amoeba by controlling cheater mutants. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 104:8913-8917.
- McConnell,R., Middlemist, S., Scala, C., Strassmann, J.E. and Queller, D.C. 2007. An unusually low microsatellite mutation rate in Dictyostelium discoideum, an organism with unusually abundant microsatellites. Genetics. 177:1499-1507
- Santorelli, LA, Thompson, CRL, Villegas, E, Svetz, J, Dinh, C, Parikh, A, Sucgang, R, Kuspa, A, Strassmann, JE, Queller, DC and Shaulsky, G. 2008. Facultative cheater mutants reveal the genetic complexity of cooperation in social amoebae. Nature 451:1107-1110.
- Cervo, R. Dapporto, L., Beani, L., Strassmann, JE, and Turillazzi, S. 2008. On status badges and quality signals in the paper wasp Polistes dominulus: body size, facial colour patterns and hierarchical rank. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B. 275:1189-1196.