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How social insects organize groups of individuals to achieve coordinated collective defense? We explore this topic in terms of division of labor and allocation, morphological worker sub-castes, metabolics, and variation in worker neurophysiology. These empirical data have also been utilized for bio-inspired design.
To learn more, check out some of our recent publications: Baudier et al. 2020 Behav Ecol Sociobiol. 74:125 Baudier et al. 2019 Behav Ecol. 30:1041-1049 Strickland et al. 2018 DARS. 9:139-151 Ostwald et al. 2018 J Insect Behav. 31:503–509 |
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Individual physiologies can scale to emergent group adaptation in social species. A major area of ongoing research is the study of how the thermal tolerance of social insects scales from individual to group, and across space and time relative to local climate. We are interested in improving our understanding of the selective pressures of microclimate, elevation, rain shadows, and sociality in setting organismal and group thermal tolerance. The impacts of this work include a better understanding of the abiotic underpinnings of species distributions across landscapes, as well as improved climate change predictions on a biogeographic scale.
For more about landscapes of thermal tolerance: Baudier & O'Donnell. 2020. Biotropica. 52:113-119. Welch et al. 2020. Insect Soc. 67: 213-219. Baudier et al. 2018. Am Nat. 192:347-359 Baudier & O’Donnell. 2018. J Therm Biol. 78:277-280 Baudier & O’Donnell. 2017. Curr Opin Insect Sci. 22:85-91 Baudier & O’Donnell. 2016. Insect Soc. 63:467-476 Baudier et al. 2015. J Anim Ecol. 84:1322-1330 |
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Neotropical army ant bivouacs are temporary nests constructed from millions of living ants that coordinately cling to one another as they collectively cradle and incubate the queen and brood. Our work is to revise and refine our understanding of how army ant bivouacs perform one of their main physiological functions: social thermoregulation. We study both above-ground bivouac thermoregulation as well as subterranean bivouac thermoregulation. This work compliments that of thermal tolerance projects, and is the cornerstone for several new directions we are taking to expand our understanding of army ants as ecological keystones in tropical forests.
For more about bivouac thermoregulation: Baudier et al. 2019. Ecography. 42:730-739. Baudier. 2019. In Encyclopedia of Social Insects. Baudier & O’Donnell. 2016. Insect Soc. 63:467-476 |
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Dr. Baudier had the great fortune early in her career to be part of a team that discovered the toxicity of erythritol to certain insects, Our initial discovery was of the insecticidal properties of erythritol to adult fruit flies, but we also went on to study the efficacy of other similar compounds, and found that larvae are particularly sensitive, suggesting that egg-syncs may be an effective application method to lessen mortality of non-target species. Although not a currently active research area, some fantastic new work on this topic is being conducted by the O'Donnell Lab at Drexel University.
Publications from this area: O'Donnell et al. 2018. J Appl Entomol. 142:37-42 O’Donnell et al. 2016. J Insect Sci. 16:1-3 Baudier et al. 2014. PLoS One. 9:e98949 |
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