Sandra Steiger

Invited Plenary Lecture

Sandra Steiger is Professor and head of the department of Evolutionary Animal Ecology at the University of Bayreuth, Germany. She received her PhD from the University of Freiburg, followed by a Feodor-Lynen Fellowship of the Humboldt foundation at the Illinois State University, USA. After completing her habilitation in the group of Manfred Ayasse at the University of Ulm, she was awarded a Heisenberg Fellowship from the German Research Foundation, which enabled her to work at the Institute of Insect Biotechnology in Gießen. Shortly after, in 2018, she was appointed as a Full Professor at the University of Bayreuth.

Sandra Steiger’s research initially centered on the evolution of chemical communication and how sexual selection and the social environment shape chemical signaling and recognition systems. Over time, her interests on social behaviour deepened, leading her to explore the factors driving the origin of parental care and family life, as well as the consequences of the evolution of family life on animal traits, especially those related to chemical communication. By working at the interface of chemical ecology and behavioural ecology, she unveiled the sophisticated nature of chemical communication in subsocial burying beetles. In general, her focus on subsocial insects complements existing research on birds and mammals, offering a broader view of the evolutionary dynamics of family life, but also extends research on eusocial insects providing new insights into the early evolution of sociality and the communication systems involved.