Publications
Heterothermia in foraging workers and drones of the bumblebee Bombus terricola
Physiological Zoology, 56, 563-567, 1983
Status: Published
Citations:
Cite: [bibtex]

Abstract: While foraging from the dense inflorescences of spiraea (Spiraea latifolia) and goldenrods (Solidago sp.), both workers and drones often allowed thoracic temperature (TsubTh) to fall below the minimum for flight. The bees were physiologically capable of maintaining a high TsubTh, but the periodic decrease in TsubTh was strongly correlated with ambient temperature (Tsuba). Decreases of TsubTh were unrelated to fuel reserves carried in the honey stomach. Drones foraging from the inflorescences were more likely to have low TsubTh than workers, even though on the average they carried several times greater fuel reserves in their honey stomach. Within workers, old or parasitized (by conopid flies) individuals were more likely to forage with low TsubTh than young an unparasitized individuals. Workers, unlike drones, showed an increasing tendency to decrease TsubTh with decreasing body mass. Although the decrease in TsubTh while foraging ('torpor'), with its associated sluggishness, appears to function as an energy-conservation mechanism, it could also be a risk-averting mechanism. By maintaining a high TsubTh and flight readiness, workers can 'gamble' on the chance of finding a new food source, unlike drones who do not have the hive's energy resources to fall back on if they deplete their supply of stored fuel.
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Bongard's work focuses on understanding the general nature of cognition, regardless of whether it is found in humans, animals or robots. This unique approach focuses on the role that morphology and evolution plays in cognition. Addressing these questions has taken him into the fields of biology, psychology, engineering and computer science.
Continuous Self-Modeling. Science 314, 1118 (2006). [Journal Page]

Danforth is an applied mathematician interested in modeling a variety of physical, biological, and social phenomenon. He has applied principles of chaos theory to improve weather forecasts as a member of the Mathematics and Climate Research Network, and developed a real-time remote sensor of global happiness using messages from Twitter: the Hedonometer. Danforth co-runs the Computational Story Lab with Peter Dodds, and helps run UVM's reading group on complexity.

Laurent studies the interaction of structure and dynamics. His research involves network theory, statistical physics and nonlinear dynamics along with their applications in epidemiology, ecology, biology, and sociology. Recent projects include comparing complex networks of different nature, the coevolution of human behavior and infectious diseases, understanding the role of forest shape in determining stability of tropical forests, as well as the impact of echo chambers in political discussions.

Hines' work broadly focuses on finding ways to make electric energy more reliable, more affordable, with less environmental impact. Particular topics of interest include understanding the mechanisms by which small problems in the power grid become large blackouts, identifying and mitigating the stresses caused by large amounts of electric vehicle charging, and quantifying the impact of high penetrations of wind/solar on electricity systems.

Bagrow's interests include: Complex Networks (community detection, social modeling and human dynamics, statistical phenomena, graph similarity and isomorphism), Statistical Physics (non-equilibrium methods, phase transitions, percolation, interacting particle systems, spin glasses), and Optimization(glassy techniques such as simulated/quantum annealing, (non-gradient) minimization of noisy objective functions).