About Joanito Liberti
I am an evolutionary molecular ecologist interested in understanding how social interactions with both beneficial and conflict-generating aspects are shaped by natural selection. I have used social insects as models, because the evolutionary derived colonies of ants and bees capture multiple, well integrated levels of social organization within a single “superorganism”. This has allowed me to investigate interactions between genes, cell lines of sperm, and bacterial symbionts across multiple levels of higher-level organization, while addressing questions about the expression and regulation of conflict at the molecular level. I am currently trying to decipher the neurophysiological and (social) behavioural effects of gut microbes on the honeybee host.
