Marco Smolla Email & Phone Number

Berlin, Germany

Munich, Bavaria, Germany

Leipzig, Saxony, Germany

Greater Philadelphia Area

Manchester, United Kingdom

Using computational models to understand the evolution of cooperative behaviour in animal social networks.

Orchid bees (Euglossini) are the only tribe of corbiculate bees (Hy- menoptera: Apidae) that do not exhibit complex social behavior. Although their predominantly solitary or communal organization offers an informative contrast to their highly eusocial sister groups it is still unclear whether mechanisms that affect social behavior are present.We went to the Fortuna Forest Reserve in Panama to work with the orchid bee Euglossa hyacinthina. There their nests can be found relatively easy. We constantly monitored the population in the reserve, and collected nests for lab experiments. We conducted behavioral and physiological experiments. With the collected data we want to provide important information regarding the ongoing controversy of the corbiculate phylogeny and the social evolution within this group.

Radolfzell, Germany

With ,move‘ we created an R package that contains functions to access movement data stored in movebank.org as well as tools to visualize and statistically analyze animal movement data. Move is addressing movement ecological questions complementing existing efforts such as adeHabitat and other packages.

Performing laboratory experiments with bumblebee Bombus terrestris to analyse a colony's ability to keep its temperature stable.

Konstanz

Analysing recruitment potential and recruitment strategies at local universities for a large Swiss auto-motive company.

Würzburg And Konstanz, Germany

Variability is said to be beneficial for example in parasitic load, or nest-temperature regulation. Many studies were already done exploiting this topic mathematical and genetical. I wanted to do the first behavioral experiments to challenge this hypothesis. Bumblebees are known to regulate nest-temperature. This gives them a certain degree of independence from environmental conditions.

Diplom, Neurobiologie Und Verhalten

Advanced studies in neurobiology, ecology, and behavioural ecology and sociobiology.

Education record

Diploma (Masters-Degree) in Behavioural ecology.

Evolutionsbiologie

Erasmus Year – Staying evolutionary biology and environmental management

Vordiplom, Biologie, Allgemein

Undergraduate studies in biology.