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How do social insect colonies 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, metabolism, and variation in worker neural architecture. These empirical data have also been utilized for bio-inspired design.
To learn more, check out some of our recent publications: Baudier et al. 2022. J Comp Neurol, 530:672-682 Bennett & Baudier. 2021. J Insect Behav, 34:162-172 Baudier & Pavlic. 2020. Myrmecological News. 30:251-258 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 |
Individual physiologies can scale to emergent group adaptation in social species. A major area of ongoing research in our lab is the study of how the thermal performance 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 fostering a better understanding of the underpinnings of species distributions across landscapes, as well as improved climate change predictions on a biogeographic scale.
For more about our research on this topic: Baudier et al. 2022. Physiol Biochem Zool. 95:379-389. 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 & Pavlic. 2022. Artificial Life and Robotics. 27:308–315 Baudier et al. 2019. Ecography. 42:730-739. Baudier. 2019. In Encyclopedia of Social Insects. Baudier & O’Donnell. 2016. Insect Soc. 63:467-476 |
One of the many documented components of anthropogenic climate change is increased frequency and intensity of tropical cyclones. These large storm systems down trees and strip canopies of branches, altering forest microhabitats and nutrient availability. How this type of disturbance affects the functional diversity of animals occupying these ecosystems is poorly known, in part because intense hurricanes are difficult to predict. Since 2022, in collaboration with the Yee Lab at USM and the University of Puerto Rico, we have been studying the effects of Hurricanes on ant communities in the Luquillo Experimental Forest (LEF), a Long-term Ecological Research (LTER) site in eastern Puerto Rico. In the spring of 2023 PhD Student Clayton Ziemke received an NSF graduate research fellowship to support his dissertation work on this topic.
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