Gong Lab Meeting

Fritz Francisco | Buston Lab | Boston University

Gong Lab Meeting

Exploring Social Complexity
in Clown Anemonefish

Fritz Francisco

9.02.2026

Photo Credit: Morgan Bennet-Smith

Fritz Francisco

Behavioral Ecology

Social Evolution

Open-Science

Title: PhD in Biology

Position: Postdoctoral Researcher

Lab: Marine Evolutionary Ecology Lab
Prof. Pete Buston, Department of Biology
Boston University

Photo Credit: Angela Albi

The Buston Lab

Paige Becker

Eva Romero

Ritika Sibal

Pete Buston

Lili Vizer

Zoé Chamot

Morgan Bennett-Smith

Behavioral Ecology

Social Evolution

Population Ecology

Population Connectivity

Why Clownfish?

Amphiprion percula

Range map of A. percula; taken from NOAA 2016; Timm et al. 2008, and De Brauwer 2014, also showing coral reef areas from Burke et al. 2011

Social Groups

Adapted from Buston 2003, Nature
Buston & Cant 2006, Behavioral Ecology

Adapted from Buston 2003, Marine Biology

Behavioral Variation

Pacaro et al. 2023, Ethology

Adapted from Rueger et al. 2022, Animal Behavior

Social Evolution

Adapted from Bourke Principles of Social Evolution 2011, (Oxford Series in Ecology and Evolution)

Size-Complexity Hypothesis

"The size–complexity hypothesis [...] predicts that [...] larger numbers of lower-level subunits select for increased division of labour."

- Bell-Roberts et al., 2024, Nature Ecology & Evolution

Social Evolution

Adapted from Bourke Principles of Social Evolution 2011, (Oxford Series in Ecology and Evolution)

Division of Labor

Épinglier (Pin-Maker) II, L'Encyclopédie (1760s)
The Wealth of Nations (1776), Adam Smith
Chapter 1: Of the Division of Labour

"[...] the separation of a work process into a number of tasks, with each task performed by a separate person or group of persons."

- Encyclopaedia Britannica

Contemporary definitions include two forms of management:

Control - Top Down Enforcement ⬇️
Commitment - Bottom Up Emergence ⬆️

Division of Labor

Ulrich et al. 2018, Nature

Objective I

Objective I: Investigate the emergence of division of labor at the initiation of social groups
- Hypothesis: Individuals in newly formed social groups gradually specialize in particular behaviors, leading to an emergent division of labor.
- Predictions:
  1. Individual behavior will become increasingly consistent over time, indicating behavioral specialization.
  2. Specialization of individual behaviors will result in complementary roles, producing a measurable division of labor within the group.
  3. Behavioral changes will precede observable morphological changes associated with specialized roles.

Objective II

Objective II: Experimentally test the size-complexity hypothesis in social groups
- Hypothesis: The degree of division of labor increases with group size in established social groups.
- Predictions:
  1. Larger, well-established social groups will exhibit a higher degree of division of labor compared to smaller or newly formed groups.