NWO Open Competition Science-M grant for Jean-Christophe Billeter

Jean-Christophe Billeter is one of two researchers at University of Groningen that have received an NWO Open Competition Domain Science-M grant. Billeter receives an M1 grant of EUR 408,000 for research into how social interactions between fruit flies influence reproductive behaviour.

Social flies and reproduction

Jean-Christophe Billeter's project, of the Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences, investigates how social interactions between fruit flies influence their reproductive behaviour. In particular, Billeter and his team will study how the presence of other flies stimulates female fruit flies to lay eggs.

Wired for Company: Decoding How Social Cues Override Environmental Signals in Drosophila melanogaster

Wired for company: Why do animals thrive in groups? Research in fruit flies reveals a surprising mechanism: the mere presence of others can reprogram fundamental physiological processes. Female flies lay more eggs when surrounded by peers, even under conditions that normally suppress reproduction. This shows an unexpected integration of social and environmental cues- companionship and light-within shared neural circuits. By mapping how the brain's clock neurons and visual pathways detect and respond to social presence, the study will uncover a novel mechanism of social modulation. These insights could redefine how we understand social influence on brain function and behavior.

About the M-grants

The NWO Open Competition Domain Science-M programme funds curiosity-driven, high-quality fundamental research in and across the fields covered by NWO Domain Science: earth sciences, astronomy, chemistry, computer science, life sciences, physics and mathematics. Researchers can apply individually or in collaboration, and proposals may be monodisciplinary, multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary.

NWO, the Dutch Research Council, is the main national funding organisation for academic research in the Netherlands. Through its Domain Science (Exacte en Natuurwetenschappen, ENW), it supports excellent, researcher-initiated research across the natural and exact sciences.