Group Dynamics and Colony Size

摘要：某些群居昆虫的工蜂数可达数百万只，但工蜂之间相互配合，使蚁群能顺利地完成所有必要的任务。最近发现，一种热带社会黄蜂的群体越大，每个工蜂的产量就越大。这种模式与先前的理解相矛盾，并对群体大小的进化有直接的影响。拟议研究的目的是了解大群体中工人的行为如何与小群体中的工人的行为组织不同，以及这些差异如何引起生产力的差异。研究将在野外的菌落上进行。新的殖民地是由成群的工蚁和蚁后建立起来的。新建立的不同大小的蜂群将用于修复受损的巢，以提供执行每种工作的工蚁数量及其个人工作速度的数据。对巢修复活动的实验操作将用于揭示工蜂用来决定是活跃还是空闲的行为线索。在25天结束时，将收集殖民地并测量大小（工蜂数量）。行为结果将与群体规模相关联，以确定不同群体规模下的行为变化如何转化为人均产出差异。本研究的结果将解释群体成员行为与群体规模之间的关系。由此产生的关于潜在机制的知识将增强我们对社会性昆虫大群体规模进化的理解，并可能为人类群体如何组织提供见解。

Abstract Jeanne 9514010 The number of workers in some social insect colonies can reach millions, yet they cooperate with one another and the colonies smoothly accomplish all their necessary tasks. It has recently been discovered for a tropical social wasp that the larger the colony, the greater its productive output per worker. This pattern contradicts previous understanding and has direct implications for the evolution of colony size. The purpose of the proposed research is to learn how the behavior of workers in large colonies is organized differently from that of small colonies and how these differences give rise to the differences in productivity. The research will be conducted on colonies in the field. New colonies are founded by swarms of workers and queens. Newly-founded colonies of different sizes will be made to repair nest damage to provide data on numbers of workers performing each type of work and their individual rates of work. Experimental manipulation of nest repair activity will be used to reveal the behavioral cues workers use to make decisions about whether to become active or idle. At the end of 25 days the colonies will be collected and the size measured (number of workers). The behavioral results will be correlated with colony size to determine how the changes in behavior at different colony size translate into per capita differences in output. The results of this study will explain the relationship between the behavior of group members and group size. The resulting knowledge of the underlying mechanisms will enhance our understanding of the evolution of large colony size in social insects and may provide insights into how human groups organize.