Social Biology of Ropalidia Montana, Award in Indian Currency

描述：该项目部分支持密苏里大学圣路易斯分校生物系的两位美国科学家James Hunt博士和Robert Jeanne博士在印度与班加罗尔印度科学研究所的R. Gadagkar博士合作进行研究时的实地费用。在这项研究中，工作将在热带地区的一种群居黄蜂——蒙大拿黄蜂上进行。这是一个相当有趣的社会纸黄蜂具有离散的蜂王/工蜂二态性的极少数物种之一。该研究将解决以下问题：1。这个物种有警报信息素吗？它的来源是什么？在蜂群迁徙的过程中，黄蜂是否使用化学物质来标记路线？3 .雄性和雌性幼虫在与成虫交换食物时是否产生不同数量的唾液？幼虫是如何逃离蛹细胞的？觅食工蜂分工的明显模式是什么？这项工作将包括选择一个黄蜂群体，并将其从其自然栖息地的高树上移到灌木区域，在那里可以更容易地进行观察。范围：这笔小额赠款将为这两位美国科学家提供资金，让他们与印度一家著名的学术和研究机构合作，在人口生物学领域开展对美国感兴趣的研究。科学家们从其他来源获得了前往印度旅行的资金。这项研究补充了亨特博士在种群生物学项目BSR8805971资助下所做的工作，该项目名为“原始社会黄蜂的营养、营养和种姓”。

Description: This project partially supports field expenses for two U.S. scientists, Dr. James Hunt and Dr. Robert Jeanne of the Department of Biology, Universiy of Missouri, St. Louis, while conducting research in India in collaboration with Dr. R. Gadagkar of the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. In the research, work will be done on Ropalidia montana, one of the social wasps of the tropics. It is of considerable interest as one of very few species of social paper wasps to have discrete queen/worker dimorphism. The research will address the following questions: 1. does the species have an alarm pheromone and what is its source, 2. do the wasps use chemicals to mark trails during swarm emigration, 3. do male and female larvae yield different quantities of saliva during food exchange with adults, 4. how do larvae escape their pupal cells, and 5. what is the apparent pattern of task partitioning by forager worker wasps?. This work will involve selection of a wasp colony and removing it from its natural habitat on high trees to an area of shrubs where observations can be made more easily. Scope: This small grant will provide funds for the two U.S. scientists to conduct research of interest, to the U.S., in the area of population biology and with the collaboration of their host at one of India's prestigeous academic and research institutes. Funds for travel to India were made available to the scientists from other sources. This research complements work being done by Dr. Hunt under a grant BSR8805971 from the Population Biology Program on "Nourishment, Trophallaxis and Caste in Primitvely Social Wasps".