Jennifer H. Fewell
Behavioral Ecology and Genetics, Social Insect Biology
Dr. Fewell's area of research is the behavioral ecology and evolution of social insects. She is interested in how task organization evolves within insect societies and in the question of how social groups function as self-organizing networks. Her current work focuses on how intrinsic variation in task performance by individual workers affects colony patterns of division of labor. Additionally, she is examining the role of genotypic variation in colony task performance.
She is also interested in social insect foraging ecology. Her work in this area examines flexibility in individual foraging decisions, as well as the role of foraging energetics and nutrient diversity in foraging strategy.
Selected Publications
Oldroyd, B.P and J.H. Fewell. In Press. Genetic diversity promotes homeostasis in social insect colonies. Trends in Ecology and Evolution; online August 2007.
Jeanson, R., J.H. Fewell, R. Gorelick, S.M. Bertram. In Press. Emergence of increased division of labor as a function of group size. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology.
Anderson, K.E., J. Gadau, B.M. Mott, R.A. Johnson, A. Altamirano, C. Strehl, and J.H. Fewell. 2006. Distribution and Evolutionary History of Genetic Caste Determination in seed harvester ants, Pogonomyrmex barbatus and Pogonomyrmex rugosus. Ecology, 87: 2171-2184.
Anderson, KE, B Hölldobler, JH Fewell, BM Mott, J Gadau. 2006. Population-wide lineage frequencies predict genetic load in the seed-harvester ant Pogonomyrmex. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 103: 13433-13438.
Clark, R.M., K.E. Anderson, J. Gadau and J.H. Fewell. 2006. Behavioral regulation of genetic caste determination in Pogonomyrmex barbatus. Ecology, 87: 2201-2206.
Harrison, JF, JH Fewell, Anderson KE, Loper GM. 2006. Environmental physiology of the invasion of the Americas by Africanized honeybees. Integrative and Comparative Biology, 46: 1110-1122.
Jeanson, R, P.F. Kukuk and J.H. Fewell. 2005. Emergence of division of labour in halictine bees: contributions of social interactions and behavioral variance. Animal Behaviour 70: 1183-1193.
Gorelick, R., S.M. Bertram, P.R. Killeen, and J.H. Fewell. 2004. Normalized mutual entropy in biology: Quantifying division of labor. American Naturalist 164:677-682.
Helms Cahan, S. and J.H. Fewell. 2004. Division of labor and the evolution of task sharing in queen associations of the ant Pogonomyrmex californicus. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 56:9-17.
Julian, G.E. and J.H. Fewell. 2004. Genetic variation and task specialization in the desert leaf-cutter ant, Acromyrmex versicolor. Animal Behaviour 68:1-8.
Fewell, J.H. 2003. Social Insect Networks. Science 301:1867-1870.
Bertram S.M, R. Gorelick and J.H. Fewell. 2003. Colony response to graded resource changes: An analytical model of the influence of genotype, environment, and dominance. Theoretical Population Biology. 64:151-162.
Feuerbacher E., Fewell J.H., Roberts S.P., Smith E.F., Harrison JF. 2003. Effects of load type (pollen or nectar) and load mass on hovering metabolic rate and mechanical power output in the honey bee Apis mellifera. Journal of Experimental Biology 206:1855-1865.
Sullivan, J.P., S.E. Fahrbach, J.F. Harrison, E.A. Capaldi, J.H. Fewell and G.E. Robinson. 2003. Juvenile hormone and division of labor in honey bee colonies: effects of allatectomy on flight behavior and metabolism. Journal of Experimental Biology 206:2287-2296.
Fewell, J.H. and S.M. Bertram. 2002. Evidence for genetic variation in worker task performance by African and European honey bees. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 52:318-325.
Huang, Z.Y. and J.H. Fewell. 2002. Modeling insect societies: from genes to colony behavior.Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 17, 403-404
Julian, G.E., J.H. Fewell, J. Gadau, R.A. Johnson, and D. DeRoma. 2002. Genetic determination of the queen caste in an ant hybrid zone. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 99: 8157-8160.
Harrison, J.F. and J.H. Fewell. 2002. Environmental and genetic influences on flight metabolic rate in the honey bee, Apis mellifera. Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology, Part A. 133:323-333.