Juan José Lagos-Oviedo
Juan José Lagos Oviedo
Campus Nord, University of Würzburg
Emil-Fischer-Straße 32
I am an Ph.D. student in Biology, mainly interested in social evolution. Currently, I am studying the evolution and consequences of social wound care and rescue behavior in army ants. Find more information in our laboratory webpage https://www.antcare.eu/
I am also intrigued by understanding: (1) the interplay between the extended phenotype, phetonype, and social organization, (2) the origins and consequences of the division of labour in social insects, and (3) conflicts between animal societies.
I perform behavioural experiments, comparative analyses using phylogenies, and theoretical models to study these questions.
More information in my webpage: https://juanjose-lagosoviedo.weebly.com/
Neotropical army ants (Eciton spp) perform wound care to workers that get injured during their raids. Hunting pugnacious prey imposes high chances of getting an injury and an infection. The wound care provided by fellows seems to increase the chances of worker survival.
In order to understand what are the drivers of social wound care and rescue behaviour I am studying in this journey:
- How wound care behaviour occurs across different species of Neotropical army ants?
- What are the chemical mechanisms used to ask for help and signalling infection?
- What are the proximate and ultimate benefits of social wound care and rescue behaviour?
- How a colony allocate task for injured ants?
2023–onwards
PhD-Student Graduate School of Life Sciences, University of Würzburg, Germany
Associated Young Researcher of the Hector Fellow Academy
2020-2022
EMJMD awarded Scholar for the Erasmus Mundus Master in Evolutionary Biology graduated from the University of Uppsala, Sweden & Université de Montpellier, France.
Project work in Montpellier, France: "The inner ear evolution in neotropical and african rodents (Ctenohystrica: Rodentia): ecological and morphofunctional implications" Supervised by: Léa Da Cunha & Pierre-Henri Fabre
Thesis in Groningen, Netherlands: "The role of body size in the evolution of worker division of labor" Supervised by: Jan Kreider & Ido Pen
Thesis in Uppsala-Lausanne, Sweden-Switzerland: "Ontogeny of task performance in an ant society" Supervised by: Tom Kay, Ebi George & Laurent Keller
2019-2020
High School Teacher, Gimnasio Vermont, Bogotá, Colombia.
2013-2019
Bachelors in Science Biology, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia.
Thesis: "Patrones de desgate mandibular en avispas sociales neotropicales (Vespidae, Polistinae)" Honours as the best thesis in Biology 2019. Awarded by Faculty of Sciences Universidad
Nacional de Colombia. Supervised by: Carlos E. Sarmiento
2025
(Preprint) Fujimoto, S.*, Lagos-Oviedo, J. J.*, Seibel, F., Puille, L., Hausmann, R., Corcoran, E., Schmitt, T, & Frank, E. T. (2025). Better Safe Than Sorry: Leg Amputations as a Prophylactic Wound Care Behaviour in Carpenter Ants. bioRxiv, 2025-06.
*Shared co-authorship
2024
Lagos-Oviedo, J. J., Pen, I.*, & Kreider, J. J.* (2024). Coevolution of larval signalling and worker response can trigger developmental caste determination in social insects. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 291(2027), 20240538. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2024.0538
*Shared co-authorship
2021
Lagos-Oviedo, J.J., Sarmiento, C.E. (2021). Task specialization and structure attrition: neotropical social wasps may disperse the cost of mandible demanding labors throughout their lives. Zoomorphology, 140(2), 269-278. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00435-021-00527-3
2016
Alonso-Ortiz, C., Ariza-Marín, E., Galvis-Jiménez, S., Lagos-Oviedo, J.J., Mariño, J.E., Martínez-Torres, D., Meneses-Gaviria, A-D., Molina-Gómez, D., Pérez-Pedraza L., Suárez-Tovar, C.M & Flórez, E. (2016). Artropofauna de La Reserva Agroforestal Cerro del Quininí Tibacuy-Cundinamarca. Serie de Miniguías de Campo del Instituto de Ciencias Naturales. N° 28.
