Sign In / Sign Out
Navigation for Entire University
Spring 2021 update | FAQ page | Class flexibility for students | Novel coronavirus updates
Jennifer Fewell is a President’s Professor and faculty leader for the Organismal, Integrative and Systems Biology Group in the School of Life Sciences. Her research centers around the organization and evolution of insect societies. She is particularly interested in the topics of work organization and the emergence of the division of labor in social groups. Fewell also studies the roles of self-organization and selection in shaping social cooperation.
In current work, she examines the role that self-organization plays in the transition from solitary to group living, and again as groups scale up in size. She primarily works on harvester ants, but she has studied the social organization of a range of other cooperative groups, from sweat bees to NBA basketball teams. She received her PhD in 1988 from the University of Colorado, Boulder.
Books
Gadau, J and JH Fewell, eds. 2009. Organization of Insect Societies: From Genomes to Sociocomplexity. Harvard University Press.
Refereed journal articles
Waters, JS, A Ochs, J Toth, JH Fewell, JH Harrison. 2016. Differentiating causality and correlation in allometric scaling: ant colony size drives metabolic hypometry. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, B 284, 20162582.
Fewell, JH and JF Harrison. 2016. Scaling of work and energy use in social insect colonies. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 70:1047-1061
Helmkampf, M, AS Mikheyev, Y Kang, JH Fewell, J Gadau. 2016. Gene expression and variation in social aggression by queens of the harvester ant Pogonomyrmex californicus. Molecular Ecology DOI: 10.111/mec.13700.
Overson, R, J Fewell, and J Gadau. 2016. Distribution and origin of intraspecific social variation in the California harvester ant Pogonomyrmex californicus. Insectes Sociaux 63:531-541.
Shaffer, Z, T. Sasaki, B. Haney, M Janssen, SC Pratt, and JH Fewell. 2016. The foundress’s dilemma: group selection for cooperation among queens of the harvester ant, Pogonomyrmex californicus. Scientific Reports 6.
Fewell, JH. 2015. Social biomimicry: what do ants and bees tell us about organization in the natural world? Journal of Bioeconomics. DOI: 10.1007/s10818-015-9207-2
Kang, Y and JH Fewell. 2015. Co-evolutionary dynamics of a host-parasite interaction model: obligate versus facultative social parasitism. arXiv preprint arXiv:1505.04348.
Nunn, CL, F Jordan, CM McCabe, JL Verdolin, JH Fewell. 2015. Infectious disease and group size: more than just a numbers game. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B. 370: DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2014.0111.
Clark, RM and JH Fewell. 2014. Social Dynamics drive selection in cooperative associations of ant queens. Behavioral Ecology 25:117-123.
Clark, RM and JH Fewell. 2014 Transitioning from unstable to stable colony growth in the desert leafcutter ant Acromyrmex versicolor. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 68:163-171.
Overson, R, J Gadau, RM Clark, SC Pratt and JH Fewell. 2014. Behavioral transitions with the evolution of cooperative nest founding by harvester ant queens. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 68:21-30.
Pinter-Wollman, N, EA Hobson, JE Smith, AJ Edelman, D Shizuka, S de Silva, JS Waters, SD Prager, T Sasaki, G Wittemyer, JH Fewell and D McDonald. 2014. The dynamics of animal social networks: analytical, conceptual, and theoretical advances. Behavioral Ecology online doi: 10.1093/beheco/art047.
Holbrook, CT, TH Eriksson, RP Overson, J Gadau, JH Fewell. 2013. Colony size effects on task organization in the harvester ant Pogonomyrmex californicus. Insectes Sociaux 60:191-201.
Holbrook, CT, P Kukuk and JH Fewell. 2013. Increased group size promotes division of labour in de novo groups of sweat bees. Behavior 150:1449-1466.
Fewell, JH, D Armbruster, J Ingraham, A Petersen and JS Waters. 2012. Basketball teams as strategic networks. PLoS ONE. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0047445.
Linksvayer, TA, JH Fewell, J Gadau and MD Laubichler. 2012. Developmental evolution in social insects: Regulatory networks from genes to societies. Journal of Experimental Zoology (Molecular and Developmental Evolution) 318:159-169.
Waters, JS and JH Fewell. Information processing in social insect networks. PLoS ONE 7: e40337. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0040337.
Holbrook, CT, PM Barden and JH Fewell. 2011. Division of labor increases with colony size in the harvester ant Pogonomyrmex californicus. Behavioral Ecology 22:960-966.
Kang, Y., R. Clark, M. Makiyama and J. Fewell. 2011. Mathematical modeling on obligate mutualism: interactions between leaf-cutter ants and their fungus garden. Journal of Theoretical Biology 289:116-127.
Waters, J.S., C.T. Holbrook, J.H. Fewell and J.F. Harrison. 2010. Allometric scaling of metabolism, growth and activity in whole colonies of the seed-harvester ant, Pogonomyrmex californicus. American Naturalist 176:501-510.
Anderson, K.A., C.R. Smith, T.A. Linksvayer, B.M. Mott, J. Gadau and J.H. Fewell. 2009. Modeling the maintenance of a dependent lineage system: The influence of positive frequency-dependent selection on sex ratio. Evolution 63:2142-2152
Holbrook, C.T., R.M. Clark, R. Jeanson, S.M. Bertram, P.F. Kukuk, and J.H. Fewell. 2009. Emergence and consequences of division of labor in associations of normally solitary sweat bees. Ethology 115(4): 301-310.
Jeanson, R. and J.H. Fewell. 2008. Influence of the social context on division of labor in ant foundress associations. Behavioral Ecology 19:567-574
Oldroyd, B.P. and J.H. Fewell. 2008. Large fitness benefits from polyandry in the honey bee. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 23:59-60
Oldroyd, B.P. and J.H. Fewell. 2007. Genetic diversity promotes homeostasis in social insect colonies. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 22:408-422.
Jeanson, R., J.H. Fewell, R. Gorelick, S.M. Bertram. 2007. Emergence of increased division of labor as a function of group size. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 62:289-298.
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, JH 2003. Social Insect Networks. Science 301:1867-1870.
Bertram SM, R Gorelick and JH 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 JH, Roberts SP, Smith EF, 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, JP, SE Fahrbach, JF Harrison, EA Capaldi, JH Fewell and GE 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, JH and SM Bertram. 2002. Evidence for genetic variation in worker task performance by African and European honey bees. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 52:318-325.
Huang, ZY and JH Fewell. 2002. Modeling insect societies: from genes to colony behavior. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 17, 403-404
Julian, GE, JH Fewell, J Gadau, RA 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, JF and JH 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.
Beshers, SN and JH Fewell. 2001. Models of division of labor in social insects. Annual Review of Entomology 46:413-440.
Fewell, JH and RE Page Jr. 2000. Colony-level selection effects on individual foraging task performance in honey bees, Apis mellifera L. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 48:173-181.
Helms, K, JH Fewell and SW Rissing. 2000. Sex ratio determination by queens and workers in the ant Pheidole desertorum. Animal Behaviour 59:523-527.
Fewell, JH and SM Bertram. 1999. Division of labor in a dynamic environment: response by honey bees to graded changes in colony pollen stores. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 46:171-179.
Fewell, JH and RE Page Jr. 1999. The emergence of division of labor in forced associations of ant foundresses. Evolutionary Ecology Research 1:537-548.
Harrison, JF, JH Fewell, SP Roberts, and HG Hall. 1997. Letter: Honeybee
thermoregulation. Science 276:1016-1017.
Fewell, JH, JF Harrison, JRB Lighton, and MD Breed. 1996. Foraging energetics of the giant tropical ant, Paraponera clavata. Oecologia 105:419-427.
Fewell, JH and ML Winston. 1996. Honey storage levels and regulation of foraging in the honey bee, Apis mellifera L. Behavioral Ecology 7:286-291.
Breed, MD, C Stierstorfer, E Furness, J Jeral and JH Fewell. 1996. Interindividual
constancy of localized search in the giant tropical ant, Paraponera clavata. Journal of Insect Behavior 9:673-682.
Harrison, JF, JH Fewell, S Roberts and HG Hall. 1996. Achievement of thermal stability by varying metabolic heat production in flying honeybees. Science 274:88-90.
Harrison, JF and JH Fewell. 1995. Temperature effects on activity, feeding and digestion in the two-striped grasshopper, Melanoplus bivittatus. Physiological Zoology 68:453-473.
Fewell, JH and RE Page Jr. 1993. Genotypic variation in foraging responses to environmental stimuli by honey bees, Apis mellifera. Experientia 49:1106-1111.
Fewell, JH, JF Harrison, TM Stiller, and MD Breed. 1992. Distance effects on resource profitability and recruitment in the giant tropical ant, Paraponera clavata. Oecologia 92: 542-547.
Fewell, JH and ML Winston. 1992. Colony state and regulation of pollen foraging in the honey bee, Apis mellifera L. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 30:387-393.
Fewell, JH and JF Harrison. 1991. Flexible seed selection by individual western harvester ants, Pogonomyrmex occidentalis. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 28:377-384.
Breed, MD, TM Stiller, JH Fewell and JF Harrison. 1991. Intercolonial interactions and nestmate discrimination in the giant tropical ant, Paraponera clavata. Biotropica, 23:301-306.
Fewell, JH and ML Winston. 1991. Individual foraging effort as a function of colony population in the honey bee, Apis mellifera L. Animal Behaviour, 42:153-155.
Fewell, JH. 1990. Directional fidelity as a foraging constraint in the western harvester ant, Pogonomyrmex occidentalis. Oecologia, 82:45-51.
Harrison, JF, JH Fewell, TM Stiller, MD Breed. 1989. The effect of experience on cues used during orientation to food in the giant tropical ant, Paraponera clavata. Animal Behaviour, 37:869-871.
Breed, MD, KR Williams and JH Fewell. 1989. Comb wax mediates the acquisition of nestmate recognition cues in honey bees. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 85:8766-8769.
Fewell, J.H. 1988. Energetic and time costs of foraging in harvester ants, Pogonomyrmex occidentalis. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 22:401-408.
Bennett, B and JH Fewell. 1987. Play frequencies in captive and free-ranging bighorn lambs, Ovis canadensis. Zoo Biology 6:237-241.
Breed, MD, JH Fewell, AJ Moore and KR Williams. 1987. Graded recruitment in a Ponerine ant. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 20:407-411.
Book Chapters and Encyclopedia Articles
Fewell, JH and P Abbot. 2018. Insect Sociality. In: A Cordoba Aquilar, D González-Tokman and I González-Santoyo eds: Insect Behavior: From Mechanisms to Ecological and Evolutionary Consequences. In Press. Oxford University Press.
Wcislo, W and JH Fewell. 2017. Sociality in Bees. In: D Rubenstein and P Abbot, eds: Comparative Social Evolution. Cambridge University Press. Pp 50-83.
Hamilton, A and JH Fewell. 2013. Groups, individuals and the emergence of sociality. In: F Bouchard and P Huneman, eds: From Groups to Individuals: Evolution and Emerging Individuality. The MIT Press.
Fewell, JH. 2010. Division of Labor. In: MD Breed and J Moore, eds. Encyclopedia of Animal Behavior. Academic Press, Oxford.
Fewell, JH, S Schmidt and T Taylor. 2009. Division of labor in the context of complexity. In: J Gadau and JH Fewell, eds. Insect Sociogenesis: From Genomes to Societies. Harvard University Press.
Clarke, RM and JH Fewell. 2004. Eusociality. In: M Bekoff, ed. Encyclopedia of Animal Behavior. Greenwood Press.
Fewell, JH 1999. Foraging task organization by honey bees. In: R Hoopingarner and L
Connor, eds. Apiculture for the 21st Century. Wicwacs Press, pp 15-24.
Loper, GM, JH Fewell, DR Smith, WS Sheppard and N Schiff. 1999. Genetic changes of a population of feral honey bees in the Sonoran desert of southern Arizona following the arrival of Acarapis woodi, Varroa jacobsoni and Africanization. In: R Hoopingarner and L Connor, eds. Apiculture for the 21st Century. Wicwacs Press, pp 47-51.
Fewell, JH. 1988. Variation in foraging patterns of the western harvester ant, Pogonomyrmex occidentalis, in relation to variation in habitat structure. In: Interindividual Behavioral Variability in Social Insects, RL Jeanne, ed. Westview Press, Boulder, CO.
Spring 2021 | |
---|---|
Course Number | Course Title |
BIO 492 | Honors Directed Study |
BIO 493 | Honors Thesis |
BIO 495 | Undergraduate Research |
BIO 499 | Individualized Instruction |
Fall 2020 | |
---|---|
Course Number | Course Title |
BIO 436 | Sociobiology & Behavioral Ecol |
BIO 492 | Honors Directed Study |
BIO 493 | Honors Thesis |
BIO 495 | Undergraduate Research |
MIC 495 | Undergraduate Research |
BIO 496 | Undergraduate Thesis |
Summer 2020 | |
---|---|
Course Number | Course Title |
BIO 495 | Undergraduate Research |
Spring 2020 | |
---|---|
Course Number | Course Title |
BIO 492 | Honors Directed Study |
BIO 493 | Honors Thesis |
BIO 495 | Undergraduate Research |
BIO 499 | Individualized Instruction |
Fall 2019 | |
---|---|
Course Number | Course Title |
BIO 436 | Sociobiology & Behavioral Ecol |
BIO 492 | Honors Directed Study |
BIO 493 | Honors Thesis |
BIO 495 | Undergraduate Research |
MIC 495 | Undergraduate Research |
BIO 496 | Undergraduate Thesis |
Summer 2019 | |
---|---|
Course Number | Course Title |
BIO 495 | Undergraduate Research |
Spring 2019 | |
---|---|
Course Number | Course Title |
BIO 492 | Honors Directed Study |
BIO 493 | Honors Thesis |
BIO 495 | Undergraduate Research |
BIO 499 | Individualized Instruction |
Fall 2018 | |
---|---|
Course Number | Course Title |
BIO 436 | Sociobiology & Behavioral Ecol |
BIO 492 | Honors Directed Study |
BIO 493 | Honors Thesis |
BIO 495 | Undergraduate Research |
MIC 495 | Undergraduate Research |
BIO 496 | Undergraduate Thesis |
Summer 2018 | |
---|---|
Course Number | Course Title |
BIO 495 | Undergraduate Research |
Spring 2018 | |
---|---|
Course Number | Course Title |
BIO 331 | Animal Behavior |
BIO 492 | Honors Directed Study |
BIO 495 | Undergraduate Research |
BIO 499 | Individualized Instruction |
Fall 2017 | |
---|---|
Course Number | Course Title |
BIO 436 | Sociobiology & Behavioral Ecol |
BIO 493 | Honors Thesis |
BIO 495 | Undergraduate Research |
BIO 496 | Undergraduate Thesis |
Summer 2017 | |
---|---|
Course Number | Course Title |
BIO 495 | Undergraduate Research |
Spring 2017 | |
---|---|
Course Number | Course Title |
BIO 492 | Honors Directed Study |
BIO 495 | Undergraduate Research |
BIO 499 | Individualized Instruction |
Fall 2016 | |
---|---|
Course Number | Course Title |
BIO 493 | Honors Thesis |
BIO 495 | Undergraduate Research |
BIO 496 | Undergraduate Thesis |
Summer 2016 | |
---|---|
Course Number | Course Title |
BIO 495 | Undergraduate Research |