About Associate Professor Madeleine Beekman
Madeleine is interested in behavioural ecology and evolutionary biology in general and uses social insects (ants and bees) and the peculiar acellular slime mould as model systems.
I am interested in studying conflict and conflict resolution at different levels: within societies (using social insects) and within an organism (using acellular slime moulds).
I have extensive experience in the fields of behavioural ecology, evolutionary and molecular biology. One of my current research directions is the study of conflict at the organismal level, focusing on insect societies and the acellular slime mould Physarum polycephalum. The hallmarks of my current research are (1) the innovative use of mathematical and computer simulation models in conjunction with rigorous laboratory and field experiments to address evolutionary and behavioural questions; (2) the use of genetic tools to address behavioural and evolutionary questions.
Some of my recent contributions to the study of conflict within societies using genetic tools have revealed that workers of the Cape honeybee (Apis mellifera capensis) are reincarnated as queens: the majority of new queens were shown to be clonal offspring of workers and of these workers most were social parasites. The fact that offspring of social parasites are successful in taking over a colony at the detriment of the host, raises interesting questions: how do such conflicts evolve and what mechanisms are there to prevent them?
Over the years I have increased my experimental expertise by incorporating new model organisms in my work. The latest addition has been the acellular slime mould Physarum polycephalum This strange creature allows us to manipulate the inheritance of mitochondria, which means that we can create an organism in which the nucleus and mitochondria are not related. We can now study what the consequences are of mixing mitochondria and nuclei from different parents and so shed light on the question why organisms have only one mother and one father. Does this sound strange but intriguing? Come and talk to me as I am looking for students interested to work in this field.
Selected publications
- Beekman M, Allsopp MH, Jordan LA, Lim J & Oldroyd BP. 2009. A quantitative study of worker reproduction in queenright colonies of the Cape honey bee Apis mellifera capensis. Molecular Ecology 18: 2722-2727. DP0878924 Here we test if workers of the Cape honeybee lay eggs as predicted based on kin-selection theory. We show that worker-reproduction is context dependent in-lieu with our own theoretical predictions.
- Hughes WOH, Oldroyd BP, Beekman M & Ratnieks FLW 2008. Ancestral monogamy shows kin selection is key to the evolution of eusociality. Science 320: 1213-1216. DP0878924 The importance of kin selection for the evolution of eusociality is hotly debated. We show that all ancestors to extant eusocial species were monogamous and thus lived in kin groups.
- Beekman M & Oldroyd BP 2008. When workers disunite: Intra-specific parasitism in eusocial bees. Annual Review of Entomology 53: 19-37. DP0878924 Here we provide an overview of conflict within insect societies, why workers are expected to cheat the system and the ways in which they do.
- Jordan LA, Allsopp MH, Oldroyd BP, Wossler TC & Beekman M. 2008 Cheating workers produce royal offspring. Proceedings of the Royal Society London B: 275: 345-351. DP0878924 The first study to investigate the maternity of queens produced by Cape honeybee colonies. We revealed that the majority of new queens are clonal offspring of workers and parasites.
- Beekman M, Komdeur J & Ratnieks FLW. 2003 Reproductive conflicts in social animals: who has power? Trends in Ecology and Evolution. 18 (6): 277-282. DP0345360 Here we bring together all social animals, from invertebrates to mammals, and use a unifying concept to understand conflict over reproduction among group members.
- Sumpter DJT & Beekman M. 2003 From non-linearity to optimality: pheromone trail foraging by ants. Animal Behaviour. 66 (2): 273-280. DP0345360 This paper is a rare example of where a collaboration between a mathematician and a biologist led to a thorough understanding of the organization of foraging in a social insect.
- Martin SJ, Beekman M, Wossler TC & Ratnieks FLW. 2002 Parasitic Cape honey bee workers, Apis mellifera capensis, evade policing. Nature 415: 163-165. Here we show that parasitic Cape honeybee workers evade an essential safety mechanism of their host colony by laying eggs that are not recognized as worker-laid.
- Beekman M, Sumpter DJ & Ratnieks FLW. 2001 Phase transition between disordered and ordered foraging in Pharaohs’ ants. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States of America 98 (17): 9703-9706. This paper shows the first phase transition in a biological system.
- Beekman M, Calis J N M & Boot WJ. 2000 Parasitic honey bees get royal treatment. Nature 404:723. This paper is the first ever to show that larvae can, and indeed do, manipulate nurse workers to their own advantage.
- Beekman M & van Stratum P. 1998 Bumblebee sex ratios: Why do bumblebees produce so many males? Proceedings of the Royal Society of London series B. 265: 1535-1543. Previous authors had claimed that bumblebee sex ratios do not fit theoretical predictions but our empirical and modeling work showed that bumblebee sex ratios perfectly fit theoretical predictions.