Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State University proudly showcases the work of undergraduate honors students by sharing this collection exclusively with the ASU community.
Barrett accepts high performing, academically engaged undergraduate students and works with them in collaboration with all of the other academic units at Arizona State University. All Barrett students complete a thesis or creative project which is an opportunity to explore an intellectual interest and produce an original piece of scholarly research. The thesis or creative project is supervised and defended in front of a faculty committee. Students are able to engage with professors who are nationally recognized in their fields and committed to working with honors students. Completing a Barrett thesis or creative project is an opportunity for undergraduate honors students to contribute to the ASU academic community in a meaningful way.
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- Creators: School of Life Sciences
Description
Studies of cooperation remain an important aspect in understanding the evolution of social cues and interactions. One example of cooperation is pleometrosis, an associative behavior of forming a colony with two unrelated, fertile queens. However, most ant species display haplometrosis, the founding of a colony by a single queen. In these associations, the queen typically rejects cooperation. In populations of Pogonomyrmex californicus, both pleometrosis and haplometrosis exists. It is not clear how associative -metrosis became a practiced behavior since haplometrotic queens tend to fight. However, as fighting in pleometrotic queens became less frequent, this induces benefit, in terms of cost savings, in having associative behaviors. The hypothesis tested was nest excavation of pleometrotic queens show sociality, while haplometrotic queens show association independence. Isolated pleometrotic queens (P) showed low excavation rate at 2.72cm2/day, compared to the rate when the task was shared in (PP) nests, 4.57cm2/day. Nest area of the (P) queens were also affected during days 3 and 4 of the experiment, where there was presence of nest area decrease. Furthermore, the excavation session of (P) was the only one determined as significant between all other nests. Although the (P) queens have low values, they eventually reach a similar point as the other nests by day 6. However, the lack of haste in excavation leads to longer exposure to the elements, substituting the risk of losing cuticles in excavation for the risk of predation. For the haplometrotic queens, nests of (H) and (HH) displayed no significant difference in excavation values, leading to having social effect in their association.
ContributorsGabriel, Ian Paulo Villalobos (Author) / Fewell, Jennifer (Thesis director) / Pratt, Stephen (Committee member) / Bespalova, Ioulia (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
Pogonomyrmex Californicus, a species of harvester ants, have polyandrous queens, meaning that each queen mates with multiple males before starting a colony. Genetic diversity derived from polyandry can provide fitness benefits to a social insect colony in several ways including an increase in behavioral flexibility of the work force. In some cases, P.californicus colonies can even exhibit polygyny, meaning that multiple queens cooperate to produce workers in a colony. In previous studies, the colony size, worker age, and genotypes of Pogonomyrmex californicus colonies were all found to influence task division to varying degrees, with matrilines appearing to only have influence within their respective colonies. These studies on matrilineal or induced variation and division of labor do not consider the effects of naturally occurring patrilineal variation, and it is unclear how exactly these two traits interact to influence colony function. In order to explore the influence of patriline on task division we raised single-queen P. californicus colonies in the lab and tested the effect of patriline on task performance in the workforce. Behavioral observations, and then genotypic data was collected and analyzed for one focal colony in the lab. The microsatellite data revealed a total of five identified patrilines among the observed workers and a Pearson chi-square test of independence showed a significant relationship between patriline and task performance. This suggests that polyandry alone can provide at least some of the benefits of genetic diversity to colony function. Further testing is needed to determine if the addition of cooperative queens may further increase genetic diversity in a colony and could supplement benefits to workforce performance. The benefits of genetic diversity may not be additive, though, in which case extra matrilines would not provide further benefit for the colony and would not then be a main driver of queen cooperation in this and other systems where polyandry and polygyny co-occur.
ContributorsWillis, Alison Rose (Author) / Fewell, Jennifer (Thesis director) / Pratt, Stephen (Committee member) / Haney, Brian (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor, Contributor) / School of Human Evolution and Social Change (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
In order to survive, species must regulate their intake of nutrients. In desert leafcutter ant colonies, acquisition of nutrients is not only important for maintaining the health of the colony, but also for the survival of a fungus which the ants cultivate and then consume. This multi-trophic, symbiotic relationship is relatively unique to leafcutter ants and interesting to researchers due to the complexity of how the individual foragers supply nutrients to both the colony and the fungus. The objective of this experiment is to study foraging rates and variation in macronutrient preference among foragers from the same colony of the desert leafcutter ant Acromyrmex versicolor. This study asks if individual foragers vary in their preference of protein to carbohydrate ratios when compared to the overall nutrient content of the colony, and how do these individuals respond as the nutrient content of the available diets increasingly deviates from the previously determined nutritional intake target ratio between 1 Protein:6.3 Carbohydrates to 1 Protein:7.5 Carbohydrates. It was hypothesized that foragers express individualized nutritional preferences that in aggregate balance colony macronutrient consumption, and the number of individuals collecting the diets would decrease as the available nutritional diets deviated away from the colony-level intake target of approximately 1P:7C. The results show trends that support the hypothesis that the number of foraging instances and the number of foragers who exhibit individualized preference towards a certain protein to carbohydrate ratio is highest when the colony is presented with diets that are closest to the colony nutritional intake target.
ContributorsGlovsky, Taylor Ella (Author) / Fewell, Jennifer (Thesis director) / Harrison, Jon (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Nutritional balance is a requirement for the survival of all species. This balance is important for complex eusocial organisms as it influences the growth and development of the colony. Leafcutter ants function as tri-trophic systems, harvesting mixed vegetation to cultivate a fungus garden that in return supplies the colony with food. Examining how the colony deals with nutrient balance is of particular interest because this species forages to provide nutrients for the fungus. There seems to be a feedback system between the fungus and the workers that influences how much of a particular macronutrient should be collected. The objective of this thesis study was to examine the foraging behavior of the desert leaf cutter ant, Acromyrmex versicolor. This study asked how nutrition, in particular the ratio of carbohydrates to proteins, influences the foraging behavior of the colony. It was hypothesized that given a choice of high protein and high carbohydrate diets the leafcutters would forage towards a balance ratio. The results from this experiment showed that A. versicolor forage towards a target ratio of protein to carbohydrate to based diets. This p:c ratio was calculated to be 1:6.2; 1 gram of protein to 6.2 grams of carbohydrate. When colonies were restricted to the high carbohydrate diet, they increased food consumption, consistent with the expectation that they would forage to reach their protein nutrient requirement, however, they reduced foraging on that diet. This suggests that ants avoid overconsuming protein, even when doing so provided more optimal carbohydrate intake. From this study I concluded that nutritional balance is a foraging goal for ant societies, similar to organisms. These results also open the question of how nutrient regulation by leafcutter ants is regulated around their mutualist relationship with another organism, the fungus.
ContributorsFarris, Megan Alexandra (Author) / Fewell, Jennifer (Thesis director) / Harrison, Jon (Committee member) / Smith, Nate (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2015-12
Description
In our exponentially expanding world, the knowledge of a group versus that of an individual is more relevant than ever. Social insects have evolved to rely on the information from the collective, and in the case of harvester ants, their choice revolves around the best seeds to collect.
The objective of this experiment is to study a colony’s seed preference following previous exposure to a seed type in the seed harvester ant Pogonomyrmex californicus. It was hypothesized that foragers would demonstrate a measurable preference for the seed type they had previously experienced over the novel seed type. The cuticular hydrocarbon profile is suspected to be an influence in the foragers’ seed selection. Following an incubation period with the designated seed type, a series of preference trials were conducted over the course of two days for two experiments in which each colony fragment was given a seed pile with a 1:1 ratio of niger and sesame, after which any seeds moved off the seed pile were determined to be chosen, as well as if the workers were observed moving the seeds off the pile from the video recordings. Using video recordings, the seed selections of individual foragers were also tracked. The results partially support the hypothesis, however, in some cases, the ants did not collect enough seeds for the preference to be significant, and not all colony fragments had preferences that lined up with what they had previously experienced according to their treatment. Familiarity with the hydrocarbon profile of the seed type the colony had experienced is a possible proximal explanation for why colonies had seed preferences that aligned with their treatment, the seed they were designated to experience. Due to the low quantity of seeds collected during preference trials, seed preference amongst individual foragers remains unclear due to many different foragers selecting a seed during only one trial, with very few foragers returning to forage for seeds over the course of the experiment.
The objective of this experiment is to study a colony’s seed preference following previous exposure to a seed type in the seed harvester ant Pogonomyrmex californicus. It was hypothesized that foragers would demonstrate a measurable preference for the seed type they had previously experienced over the novel seed type. The cuticular hydrocarbon profile is suspected to be an influence in the foragers’ seed selection. Following an incubation period with the designated seed type, a series of preference trials were conducted over the course of two days for two experiments in which each colony fragment was given a seed pile with a 1:1 ratio of niger and sesame, after which any seeds moved off the seed pile were determined to be chosen, as well as if the workers were observed moving the seeds off the pile from the video recordings. Using video recordings, the seed selections of individual foragers were also tracked. The results partially support the hypothesis, however, in some cases, the ants did not collect enough seeds for the preference to be significant, and not all colony fragments had preferences that lined up with what they had previously experienced according to their treatment. Familiarity with the hydrocarbon profile of the seed type the colony had experienced is a possible proximal explanation for why colonies had seed preferences that aligned with their treatment, the seed they were designated to experience. Due to the low quantity of seeds collected during preference trials, seed preference amongst individual foragers remains unclear due to many different foragers selecting a seed during only one trial, with very few foragers returning to forage for seeds over the course of the experiment.
ContributorsNewton, Natalie Nicole (Author) / Fewell, Jennifer (Thesis director) / Steven, Pratt (Committee member) / Ioulia, Bespalova (Committee member) / School of Art (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05