Sandra Steiger

Postdoc Alert! New Postdoc Position for 3 years (max 3 more)- offers the freedom to develop your own research projects in close interaction with my group. Research on invertebrates preferred. Apply by October 31. Please RP. zoologie.uni-greifswald.de/en/organizat... 🧪

How has offspring dependence on parents evolved over the course of evolution? Researchers at the University of Bayreuth have investigated one possible mechanism by studying the burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides. https://www.uni-bayreuth.d... weiterlesen

Parent-prepared carcasses gave burying beetle larvae higher survival and growth, while attracting fewer competing insects. A related species did not show the same dependence on preparation. doi.org/hcg2km

Our first session today is all about migration. Fantastic talks on migratory behaviour of common terms and social dispersal in burying beetles, delivered by Sofia Ventura and @sciencepaulh.bsky.social! #gradbehav26

📰Published📰Context-dependent joint buffering of abiotic stress by parental care and sibling interactions🪲 buff.ly/CRir32r 🧪🌍️

New publication from our lab! Congrats to @sciencepaulh.bsky.social!

Early view of our new paper! @steigerlab.bsky.social Can sibling interactions buffer against environmental stress or are sibling interactions themselves interrupted by environmental stress? Well, as always, its complicated... besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Family life helps beetles cope with the effects of climate change www.uni-bayreuth.de/en/press-rel... #UniBayreuth #TotengräberKäfer #Klimawandel #UBT #Wissenschaft #Nachhaltigkeit

Well done @paulhuber.bsky.social for giving a great talk even after total technical breakdown

📢Publication alert 📢 @pnas.org Parental niche construction buffers microbial and competitive challenges and drives offspring dependence in burying beetles | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... Big congrats to Eric on his first PhD chapter! 🎉 Press release: www.uni-bayreuth.de/en/press-rel...

Very happy to have given my first ever keynote. Big thanks to Tamara Pokorny and the @dzg-gerzoolsociety.bsky.social for the invitation!!

Our last session today covers bats' ability to (echo)locate in large groups, and offspring cooperation in burying beetles. Great talks delivered by @beleyurthejasvi.bsky.social and @paulhuber.bsky.social! #DZG2026

Big thanks to @max-evolbio.bsky.social and @steigerlab.bsky.social for their support!

Delighted that I was given the chance to present our results at the #DZG202 We tried to disentangle how offspring reliance on social immunity influences their dependency on parental care. Together with our #transcriptomic data, we will give you a clear(er) answer - hoperfully sooner than later🤞🏻

Looking forward to this year's meeting of the @dzg-gerzoolsociety.bsky.social Excited to present our research results tomorrow on how offspring dependency and its #evolution may be influenced by (social) #immunity.

#DZG2026 news: The detailed programme, guidelines & abstract book are out. If you haven't checked out already: dzg-meeting.de/en/programme... Now that everything is set, we are looking forward to an exciting meeting, big thanx to the Münster organising team!! Have a save trip and see you you soon!

🚨 I AM HIRING a 3-year postdoc & 4-year PhD student 🚨 [PLEASE SHARE WIDELY] My Emmy Noether @dfg.de funded Neural Circuit & Systems Evolution lab (🌟) at the @unimainz.bsky.socialÍ wants to start existing. So..., what do we need? WELL... we need you! APPLY UNTIL 21 SEPTEMBER.

📢Publication alert 📢 @pnas.org Parental niche construction buffers microbial and competitive challenges and drives offspring dependence in burying beetles | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... Big congrats to Eric on his first PhD chapter! 🎉 Press release: www.uni-bayreuth.de/en/press-rel...

Glad to share our new paper! Previously, we knew burying beetles' phoretic mites aren't just hitchhikers. Now we ask: do beetles read mites as an environmental cue to adjust reproduction? We split broods into 3 groups—no mites, 24h mite exposure then removed, mites throughout.

What a great insect parental care symposium at #ece2026tours! Thanks to @jmeunierearwig.bsky.social, @max-evolbio.bsky.social and Jos Kramer for organizing.

#ece2026tours is already drawing to a close 😥 It was a fantastic opportunity to bring together a lot of the insect parental care (IPC) community and to lay the groundwork for a future IPC conference. I'm looking forward to it and I'd like to thank everyone for coming to Tours. I had a blast! 🤩🤩🤩

Just after presenting our work about how different patterns of parental care can affect immunity in #nicrophorus offspring at the @ece2026tours.bsky.social, it's now published by @insect-science.bsky.social and you can (open) access it here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Setting the mood at ECE, nice work @irbi-tours.bsky.social Tours :) youtu.be/nnr3lqW80gQ?...

Here we go @ece2026tours.bsky.social ! Looking forward to this :)

Our new paper is out in Frontiers in Zoology on the molecular basis of parental care. We show that in the burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides, extensive molecular reprogramming already occurs before offspring hatch. Congrats to Julius! #Nicrophorus

And another paper out today in Physiological Entomology 🪲 We show that egg laying reshape immunity in earwigs: mothers had fewer immune cells and shifts in haemocyte types. These findings reveal physiological costs of motherhood in insects. resjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

New paper accepted in Proc B! 🎉 We disentangled how heatwaves affect maternal egg care in earwigs. We found that mothers adjust care depending on both their own heat stress and the stress of their eggs, but these effects act independently rather than interactively. doi.org/10.1098/rspb...

Ever wonder how different burying beetle species vary in terms of immunity, and if the vast differences in larval dependency are reflected? I bet you did! So did we: doi.org/10.1111/eea.... Congratulations to Laura and @leo-theo.bsky.social, and big thanks to @steigerlab.bsky.social!

dzg-meeting.de/en/welcome-ms/ The Meeting of the German Zoological Society will take place in Münster from September 7 to 11! Abstract submission until June 15! 🧪

📢 Mark your calendars for the Joint Graduate Meeting 2026, sponsored by @ethoges.bsky.social and the German Zoological Society (DZG)! Don't miss this fantastic opportunity to showcase your research & network with peers! 📆 30.09. - 02.10.2026 🌍 @uni-muenster.de Abstract submission will open soon.

Writing on parental care and reproductive strategies? Submit to our collection! We invite studies on the diversity, function and costs of parental care; the evolution of reproductive and mating strategies; the roles of sexual selection and conflict; and the factors that drive variation in parenting.

Job alert! PhD position "Evolutionary Genomics of Transcriptional Regulation in Beetle Sociality" with @bfeldmeyer.bsky.social in collaboration with me and the fantastic burying beetles!

You want to work on Transcriptional Regulation in Beetles 🐞? Join our GEvol Community and work with many great people ➡️ Two open PhD positions in @bfeldmeyer.bsky.social lab in Frankfurt: g-evol.uni-muenster.de/open-positio...

Two PhD positions available in our lab! www.senckenberg.de/de/stellenan... a) "Genomic Mechanisms of Olfactory Adaptation and Plasticity in Wasps, Ants, and Bees." 🐜🐝 REF.11-26010 b) "Evolutionary Genomics of Transcriptional Regulation in Beetle Sociality."🪲🪳 REF.11-26011

Interested? Click here for more info! Submission deadline is December 7th 2026!

New study out with @steigerlab.bsky.social! We investigated male care in a biparentally caring 🪲. Why does male contribution vary so much? Turns out there are repeatable individual differences, and how much the female does only affects some male care behaviors. authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

HIRING! We are looking for a new PhD student to work on insects in deadwood, effects of microclimate and land use. This is part of the Biodiversity Exploratories @bexplo.bsky.social and will use a new experiment using rain-out shelters in different regions of Germany. EU driver´s licence required.

Please share: We are hosting the 2026 DZG evolutionary biology graduate meeting at Uni Hamburg on March 25-27: "Interactions and Coevolution: from Molecules to Species". #PhD students, early postdocs and advanced Master students in evolutionary biology are welcome to register! t1p.de/dzg2026evolbio

3-year PhD position in insect ecophysiology and land-use intensity with PD Dr. Florian Menzel (@unimainz.bsky.social) and Prof. Dr. Thomas Schmitt ( #Würzburg ). Application deadline: February 4th, 2026. More info here: www.blogs.uni-mainz.de/fb10-evoluti... #insects #ecophysiology #land-use #CHCs

📣 PhD opportunity in my lab 📣 We're looking for a motivated student interested in the effects of thermal stress on animal survival and reproduction: www.findaphd.com/phds/project... Project is open-ended to allow student to define its direction depending on their interests Please share widely!

New article from the lab out today, in which we discuss how social behavior evolves at the molecular level. From parenting across the animal tree of life to caste systems in social insects, it’s all connected (and, therefore, slowly starts to make sense)…

GEvol Job Alert: PhD position in Robert Paxtons lab in Halle This research project focuses on the extent to which the origin of eusociality in the socially variable halictid bees is ascribable to changes in gene regulatory mechanisms. Find this and more open positions @ g-evol.uni-muenster.de

📢 Don’t forget! This is the last week of early bird registration for what promises to be a great meeting in Tours, France, next year. Exciting program on all aspects of insects research, great food, lovely wine, a beautiful historic city, castles … it will be memorable! ✨ www.ece2026.org

Next European Congress of Entomology in the lovely city of Tours, France 👇

📢 18-month PostDoc Fellowship – University of Montpellier (France) 🦠🦋 Interested in insect pathology, immunity, microbiome, or genomics? We’re looking for a motivated candidate (<2 years post-PhD by mid-2026). 🧪 📩 Contact me ASAP for details! ⏳ Application deadline: 16/01/26 🔁 Please RT / Repost

Are you a bachelor's / master's student looking for a thesis project or Erasmus Internship? We’re looking for someone to come and help us collecting data! If you’re interested, feel free to contact me! :)