Akiko Koto

Social animals are exposed to the social communication at every moment. Individuals are affected by some stimulation emitted by other members of group. At the same time, separation from other members of group leads to the modification of physiology and behaviors, finally affecting their fitness. In social insects, individuals belong to respective castes and live in the societies. Because of their strong social bonding, they usually cannot survive in complete isolation. However, the mechanisms involved are still unrevealed. We focused on the effect of social deprivation in ants Camponotus fellah, and try to find out which kinds of social interaction functions to keep ant survival, and how their physiology or behaviors are modified using ant-tracking system. My goal is to reveal the mechanism how social deprivation affects the fitness in social insects.

2011-
Postdoctoral fellow
Laurent Keller's lab, Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Lausanne, Switzerland

2010-2011
Postdoctoral fellow
Masayuki Miura's lab, Department of Genetics, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Tokyo, Japan

2007-2010
PhD
Masayuki Miura's lab, Department of Genetics, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Tokyo, Japan

2005-2007
Master’s degree
Masayuki Miura's lab, Department of Genetics, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Tokyo, Japan