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Interests:
Evolution of communication, chemical communication, recognition mechanisms, parental care.
Research:
Chemical information transfer is essential in life and tunes the behavior of organisms across the taxonomic spectrum, from plants and fungi to insects, birds, and mammals. I am interested in the evolution of chemical communication, particularly of the design, information content and honesty of chemical signals.
In my PhD thesis I focused on mate and partner recognition processes based on chemical cues and signals in the burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides. My PhD thesis was supported by the German Academic National Foundation (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes).
Currently, I am working as a Feodor Lynen Fellowship of the Alexander von Humboldt foundation in the group of Prof. Dr. Scott Sakaluk and Dr. Anne Eggert at the Illinois State University.
| Publications: |
| 2009 |
| Steiger, S., Whitlow, S., Peschke, K. & Müller,
J. K. (2009). Surface chemicals inform about sex and breeding
status in the biparental burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides.
Ethology, 115, 178-185. |
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| 2008 |
| Steiger, S., Franz, R. Eggert, A.-K. & Müller, J.
K. (2008) The Coolidge effect, individual recognition and selection
for distinctive cuticular signatures in a subsocial insect.
Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B 275, 1831-1838. |
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| Steiger, S. & Müller, J. K. (2008) ‘True’ and ‘untrue’ individual
recognition: suggestion of a less restrictive definition. Trends
in Ecology and Evolution 23, 355. |
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| Smiseth, P., Hwang, W., Steiger, S. & Müller, J.
K. (2008) Adaptive consequences and heritable basis of asynchronous
hatching in Nicrophorus vespilloides. Oikos 117, 899-907. |
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| Steiger, S., Peschke, K. & Müller, J. K. (2008) Correlated
changes in breeding status and polyunsaturated cuticular hydrocarbons:
the chemical basis of nestmate recognition in the burying beetle
Nicrophorus vespilloides? Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology,
62, 1053-1060. |
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| 2007 |
| Steiger, S., Richter, K. Eggert, A.-K. & Müller,
J. K. (2007) Maternal nutritional condition and and genetic
differentiation affect brood size and offspring body size in
Nicrophorus. Zoology 110, 360-368. |
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| Steiger, S., Peschke, K., Francke, W. & Müller, J.
K. (2007) The smell of parents: breeding status influences
cuticular hydrocarbon pattern in the burying beetle Nicrophorus
vespilloides. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London
Series B 274, 2211-2220. |
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