Polyethism in Insect Colonies

这个项目将研究动物社会成员之间的攻击性（支配）互动如何影响群体水平的协调。 群居黄蜂是这项工作的理想对象，因为它们的群体复杂，而且人们可以很容易地通过实验操纵它们的社会结构。奥唐纳博士将评估生理和遗传背景的变化如何导致工人中优势地位的个体差异，并控制优势的发展。 此外，他将实验性地改变蚁群的条件，并评估优势在保持殖民地水平上的有效任务表现中的作用。由数百个或更多相互作用的个体组成的动物社会可能是自组织实体。社会的劳动力是非等级结构的，工人依靠与其他工人的沟通来调节他们的任务绩效决策。这项研究将增强我们对一个经过充分研究的、复杂的动物社会中劳动分工规则的理解。此外，这项研究将产生一般的洞察力如何在大型，分散的社会群体中实现社会协调。拟议中的社会优势研究将通过研究个体行为可能整合到一个功能性群体中的方式，扩展最近关于个体行为的生理和遗传约束的发现。

This project will investigate how aggressive (dominance) interactions among animal society members can influence coordination at the group level. Social wasps are ideal subjects for this work, given their complex colonies and the ease with which one can experimentally manipulate their social structure. Dr. O'Donnell will assess how variation in physiology and genetic background lead to individual differences in dominance status among workers, and govern the development of dominance. In addition he will experimentally alter colony conditions, and assess the role of dominance in maintaining efficient task performance at the colony level. Animal societies of hundreds or more interacting individuals may be self-organizing entities. The society's labor force is non-hierarchically structured, and workers rely on communication with other workers to regulate their task-performance decisions. The proposed research will enhance our understanding of the regulation of division of labor in a well-studied, complex animal society. Furthermore, this research will yield general insight into how social coordination may be achieved in large, decentralized social groups. The proposed studies of social dominance will expand upon recent findings of physiological and genetic constraints on individual behavior, by examining the ways in which an individuals' behavior may be integrated into a functioning colony.