Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg

PD Dr H Michael G Lattorff

PD Dr H Michael G Lattorff

PD Dr H Michael G Lattorff

Curriculum vitae

  • Year of birth – 1974
  • Nationality – german
  • Married, 5 children
  • Current position: associated researcher
  • Habilitation – 2013, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg
  • PhD – 2005, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg
  • Diplom (Biologie) – 2000, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg

Research Interests

I'm interested in certain characteristics of insect societies, particularly reproductive division of labour and defences against pathogens. Particularly, I'm interested in

  1. worker reproduction in order to understand the evolution of the sterile worker caste
  2. the genetic basis of disease resistance
  3. plasticity in the activation of immune responses
  4. the evolutionary forces driving immune gene evolution at the molecular level
  5. social context dependent gene expression changes in social insects.

Selected Publications

Barribeau, SM, Sadd BM, ..., Helbing S, Karaus E, Lattorff HMG, Marxer, M, Meeus I, ..., Zbodnov EM, Schmid-Hempel P 2015. A depauperate immune repertoire precedes evolution of sociality in bees. Genome Biol 16: 83.

Lattorff HMG, Buchholz J, Fries I, Moritz RFA 2015. A selective sweep in a Varroa destructor resistant honeybee (Apis mellifera) population. Infect Genet Evol 31: 169-176.

Erler S, Lhomme P, Rasmont P, Lattorff HMG 2014. Rapid evolution of antimicrobial peptide genes in an insect host-social parasite system. Infect Genet Evol 23: 129-137.

Lattorff HMG, Moritz RFA 2013. Genetic underpinnings of division of labor in the honeybee.  Trends Genet 29: 641-648.

Richter J, Helbing S, Erler S, Lattorff HMG 2012. Social context dependent immune gene expression in bumblebees (Bombus terrestris). Behav Ecol Sociobiol 66: 791-796.

Fouks B, Lattorff HMG 2011. Recognition and avoidance of contaminated flowers by foraging bumblebees (Bombus terrestris). PLoS ONE 6: e26328.

Erler S, Popp M, Lattorff HMG 2011. Dynamics of Immune System Gene Expression upon Bacterial Challenge and Wounding in a Social Insect (Bombus terrestris). PLoS ONE 6: e18126.

Lattorff HMG, Moritz RFA, Crewe RM, Solignac M 2007. Control of reproductive dominance by the thelytoky gene in honeybees. Biol Lett 3: 292-295.

The Honeybee Genome Sequencing Consortium (HGSC) 2006. Insights into social insects from the genome of the honeybee Apis mellifera. Nature 443: 931-949.

Moritz RFA, Lattorff HMG, Neumann P, Kraus FB, Radloff SE, Hepburn HR 2005. Rare royal families in honeybees, Apis mellifera. Naturwissenschaften 92: 488-491.

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