Dissertation Research: Population Biology of the Eastern Tent Caterpillar

东方帐篷毛虫群居在丝质帐篷里， 它们在樱桃树和苹果树上合作构建。 他们 也会合作寻找食物， 通过化学痕迹传播给帐篷里的人 他们的社会组织 这个合作系统是如何演变的， 东部帐篷毛虫是唯一已知的非真社会性昆虫， 采用复杂的化学通讯系统， 觅食的起源给经典的 基于个体适应度的选择理论。 利用殖民地可以被 在野外取样，在实验室研究，遗传 殖民地之间和殖民地内部的关系以及行为 个体毛虫对帐篷伙伴和帐篷的偏好 将被衡量。 观察到的模式应该对 可能是东部帐篷毛虫社会进化的结果 系统

Eastern tent caterpillars live communally in silken tents which they construct cooperatively in cherry and apple trees. They also cooperate in the search for food, communicating their funds to tentmates via chemical trails. Their social organization both the question of how this cooperative system evolved the eastern tent caterpillar is the only non-eusocial insect known to employ a complex chemical communication system for corperative foraging the origin of which poses some problems for classical selection theory based on individual fitness. Taking advantage of the ease with which colonies can be sampled in the field and studied in the laboratory, genetic relationships between and within colonies and behavioral preferences of individual caterpillars for tentmates and tents will be measure. The patterns observed should some light on the likely made of evolution of the eastern tent caterpillar social system.