Ulrich G. Mueller

W.M. Wheeler Lost Pines Professor, Section of Integrative Biology
see also the Environmental Science Institute,
the Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics,
and Institute for Cellular and Molecular Biology

Lab web site Education | Research | Personnel | Important Collaborators | Instruction | Awards | Publications

E-mail:
umueller@mail.utexas.edu
Office:
PAT 629
(512) 232-5775
Lab:
PAT 619-622, 632-634, 642, 645
(512) 471-7619
Fax:
(512) 471-3878

Education

  • M.A., Animal Behavior, Cornell University, 1986.
  • Ph.D., Molecular Ecology and Behavior, Cornell University, 1992.

Research Interests

Behavioral Evolution, Molecular Ecology, and Microbial Ecology: Dr. Mueller's research aims at understanding the evolution of organismal interactions, particularly the evolution of mutualisms and the evolution of social conflict and cooperation. Current research focuses largely on the coevolution between fungus-growing ants and their fungi, but Dr. Mueller admits to an inordinate fondness for social insects in general.

 

Evolution, Ecology & Behavior of Social Insects

Research in the Mueller Lab integrates animal behavior, ecology, evolution, microbiology, and systematics, with a focus on social insects. Many projects revolve around the biology of fungus-growing ants, but other social insects such as sweat bees, honeybees, and paperwasps are studied as well.

Ecology & Co-Evolution of Symbioses

Research on host-symbiotic coevolution elucidates patterns of ant-microbe co-cladogenesis, symbiont specificity, symbiont choice, and the engineering of microbial consortia by fungus-growing ants in their gardens. Research on ant-fungus coevolution tests specific predictions of symbiont-choice theory.

Evolution of Conflict & Cooperation

Social insects are particularly suitable for the study of evolution in a social context, such as the study of conflict and cooperation within a colony of social insects, between social parasites and their hosts, or between social insects and their macroparasitic and microbial symbionts.

Tropical Biology

Field research is conducted throughout the Neotropics, but primarily at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in the Republic of Panama and at the Centro de Estudos de Insetos Sociais, Rio Claro, SP, Brazil.

Ongoing Projects

  • Symbiont-choice in the attine ant-fungus symbiosis
  • Engineering of microbial consortia in gardens of fungus-growing ants
  • Biogeography of fungus-growing ants and their cultivated fungi
  • Natural history of the fungus-growing ants of the USA

Student Projects

  • Asexuality in the male-less ant Mycocepurus smithii
  • Evolution of social parasitism in Megalomyrmex ants
  • Biogeography and diversification processes of Atta leafcutter ants
  • Cryptic sexuality in the fungi cultivated by fungus-growing ants
  • Adaptive functions of sleep in honeybees and paperwasps
  • Ant-microbe coevolution of North American Trachymyrmex ants
  • Systematics of ants in the genus Mycocepurus
  • Mite-symbionts of Megalopta sweat bees

 

Personnel

Graduate Students

Undergraduate Students

  • Rachel Cable
  • Dev Dash
  • Jennifer Mir
  • Diana Nguyen
  • Divya Seval
  • Komal Shah
  • Martin Stiegler
  • Andrew Tseng
  • Christy Wang

Technicians

  • Mike Cooper

Former Associates

  • Patrick Abbott, Assistant Professor, Vanderbilt University
  • Cameron Currie, Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin
  • Don Dearborn, Assistant Professor, Bucknell University
  • Nicole Gerardo, PERT Fellow, University of Arizona
  • Natasha Mehdiabadi, Postdoctoral Researcher, Smithsonian Institute
  • Takahiro Murakami, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Hokkaido, Japan
  • Sergio Sanchez-Pena, Associate Professor, University of Monterrey, Mexico
  • Palle Villesen, Assistant Professor, Bioinformatics Research Centre, University of Aarhus, Denmark

Important Collaborators

Instruction

Spring 2004: BIO 370 Evolution
course website

Fall 2003: BIO 359J Behavioral Ecology
see course website for syllabus, course info, readings, etc.

Spring 2003: BIO 370 Evolution

Fall 2002: BIO 387S - Laboratory Methods in Molecular Ecology and Systematics
syllabus

Spring 2002: BIO 370 - Evolution

Fall 2001: BIO 384K - Evolution of Cooperation & Conflict
syllabus | course readings

Spring 2001: BIO 370 - Evolution

Fall 2000: BIO 359J - Behavioral Ecology

Spring 2000: BOT 395C - Laboratory Methods in Molecular Systematics and Molecular Ecology

Awards/Honors

  • W.M. Wheeler Lost Pines Professorship, 2006
  • Reeder Fellow, University of Texas at Austin, 2003-2004
  • Teaching Excellence Award, College of Natural Sciences, UT Austin, 2003
  • Reeder Fellow, University of Texas at Austin, 2000-2001
  • Faculty Career Award, National Science Foundation, 2000-2005
  • Tupper Fellow, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, 1995-1997
  • Whittaker Award, Cornell University, 1992
  • Wilde Fellow, Cornell University, 1991-1992

Publications

  • Mueller, U.G., Gerardo, N.M., Aanen, D.K., Six, D.L., and Schultz, T.R. 2005. The Evolution of Agriculture in Insects. Annual Reviews in Ecology Evolution and Systematics. 36: 563-595. (pdf)
  • Mikheyev, S., U.G. Mueller, P. Abbott. 2006. Cryptic sex and many-to-one co-evolution in the fungus-growing ant symbiosis. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 103: 10702-10706. (pdf)
  • Gerardo, N.M., S.R. Jacobs, C.R. Currie, U.G. Mueller. 2006. Ancient host-pathogen associations maintained by specificity of chemotaxis and antibiosis. PLOS in press. (pdf)
  • Gerardo, N.M., C.R. Currie, S.L. Price, U.G. Mueller. 2004. Exploitation of a mutualism: specialization of fungal parasites on cultivars in the attine ant symbiosis. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 1791-1798. pdf
  • Mueller, U.G., and N. Gerardo. 2002. Fungus-farming insects: Multiple origins and diverse evolutionary histories. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 99: 15247-15249. (pdf)
  • Currie, C.R., B. Wong, A.E. Stuart, T.R. Schultz, S.A. Rehner, U.G. Mueller, G.-H. Sung, J.W. Spatafora. 2003. Ancient tripartite coevolution in the attine ant-microbe symbiosis. Science 299: 386-388. (pdf)
  • Sachs, J., U.G. Mueller, T.P. Wilcox, J.J. Bull. 2004. The evolution of cooperation. Quarterly Review of Biology 79: 136-160. (pdf)
  • Mueller, U.G. 2002. Ant versus fungus versus mutualism: Ant-cultivar conflict and the deconstruction of the attine ant-fungus symbiosis. American Naturalist 160 Supplement: S67-S98. (pdf)
  • Mueller, U.G., T.R. Schultz, C. Currie, R. Adams, and D. Malloch. 2001. The origin of the attine ant-fungus symbiosis. Quarterly Review of Biology 76: 169-197. (pdf)
  • Currie, C., U.G. Mueller, and D. Malloch. 1999. The agricultural pathology of ant fungus gardens. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 96: 7998-8002. (pdf)
  • Mueller, U.G., and L. Wolfenbarger. 1999. AFLP genotyping and fingerprinting. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 14: 389-394. (pdf)
  • Mueller, U.G., S.A. Rehner, and T.D. Schultz, 1998. The evolution of agriculture in ants. Science 281: 2034-2038. (See also Perspectus by Jared Diamond "Ants, Crops, and History" in same issue, pp. 1974-1975.) (pdf)

More information - see longer list of representative publications.