Professor Queller is interested in the evolution of cooperation and conflict, with questions ranging from the genetic and molecular details of cooperation in social amoebas up to the nature of organisms.

Evolution usually favors “selfish” individuals that outcompete others, but it has nevertheless forged highly cooperative entities like social insect colonies, multicellular organisms, and the eukaryotic cell.

In empirical studies with Joan Strassmann, David Queller studies cooperation both among social amoebas and between these amoebas and bacterial symbionts. They are also studying conflict between the amoebas and their bacterial prey. They do genomic studies to study adaptation in the past and experimental evolution to study it in real time. On the theoretical side, he explores this evolution of cooperation with models using population genetics, inclusive fitness, or game theory.