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Dr. Jennifer Fewell received her PhD from
the University of Colorado at Boulder. Her area of research is the behavioral
ecology and evolution of social insects. She is interested in the evolution
of task organization in these insects. Her current work focuses on how
intrinsic variation in task performance by individual workers affects
colony patterns of division of labor. She is testing a model hypothesizing
that division of labor can self-organize from variation among workers
in their intrinsic sensitivity to different tasks.
Additionally, she is
examining the role of genotypic variation in colony task performance.
Dr. Fewell's research uses both honey bees and ants as model systems.
She uses both behavioral and genetic techniques in her empirical work,
including RAPD (Random Amplification of Polymorphic DNA) analysis and
gel electrophoresis. Her publications include “Social Insect Networks,”
Science, 26 September 2003, 1867; and with R.E. Page Jr. “The emergence
of division of labor without selection in forced foundress associations
of the ant, Pogonomyrmex barbatus,” Evolutionary Ecology (1999)
and “Genotypic variation in foraging responses to environmental
stimuli by honey bees, Apis mellifera,” Experientia 49:1106-1112
(1993).
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