Joseph Parker
Interactions between species have been central to life's diversification. The Parker lab is interested in the mechanisms underlying evolutionary change, particularly in the context of symbiosis. Their focus is on the behaviorally complex interspecies relationships that have evolved within the Metazoa. They use rove beetles (Staphylinidae) as their exploratory system, a hugely species-rich clade that has repeatedly evolved highly intimate and phenotypically elaborate symbioses with ants. Such species embody evolution in the extreme, with dramatic behavioral, anatomical and chemical adaptations for life as social parasites inside ant colonies. The widespread evolution of this symbiosis in staphylinids provides a unique paradigm for understanding how obligate interspecies interactions can evolve between free-living organisms. The Parker lab is interested in the core molecular and neurobiological circuitry by which reciprocal signals are exchanged between ant and beetle, fostering their interaction. Their work is integrative, combining genomics and developmental biology with chemical ecology and behavioural neuroscience to explore all facets of the ant-beetle interaction and its evolutionary basis. They have found that some of the most remarkable symbiotic phenotypes have evolved convergently many times in Staphylinidae, often in distantly related lineages. The system illuminates the enduring question of how complex phenotypic changes can arise repeatedly and predictably over a deep evolutionary timescale.
Publications
- Kitchen, Sheila A.;Naragon, Thomas H. et al. (2024) The genomic and cellular basis of biosynthetic innovation in rove beetlesCell
- Parker, Joseph (2024) Symbiosis: Did bacteria bias the beetle big bang?Current Biology
- Parker, Joseph (2022) The bank most tangled [book review]Current Biology
- Parker, Joseph (2022) Interactions between insect species: their evolution and mechanistic architectureCurrent Opinion in Insect Science
- Parker, Joseph (2022) Transitional morphology and Afrotropical affinity of a bythinoplectine rove beetle from the early Eocene of India (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Pselaphinae)Palaeoentomology
- Naragon, Thomas H.;Wagner, Julian M. et al. (2022) Parallel evolutionary paths of rove beetle myrmecophiles: replaying a deep-time tape of lifeCurrent Opinion in Insect Science
- Davison, Helen R.;Pilgrim, Jack et al. (2022) Genomic diversity across the Rickettsia and 'Candidatus Megaira' genera and proposal of genus status for the Torix groupNature Communications
- Kanwal, Jessleen K.;Parker, Joseph (2022) The neural basis of interspecies interactions in insectsCurrent Opinion in Insect Science
- Parker, Joe (2022) Joe Parker [Q&A with Joe Parker]Current Biology
- Stuckey, K.;Dua, R. et al. (2022) Optimal dynamic incentive scheduling for Hawk-Dove evolutionary gamesPhysical Review E