Scott Camazine

We hypothesize two functions of the vibration signal (dorsal ventral abdominal vibration = DVAV) during swarming in honey bees: 1. it enhances recruitment to the specific sites advertised by the waggle dancers which also perform the vibration signal; and 2. it acts as a nonspecific modulatory signal to stimulate activity in other bees. The stimulat...

Cineradiographic analysis of the posture and movements of the femur and pelvis in representatives of three carnivore families (Procyonidae, Felidae, Canidae) reveals discrete locomotor patterns during walking. Raccoons (Procyon tolor) abduct the femur substantially, and engender large pelvic movements. Canids (Vulpes fulva, Canis familiaris) abduct...

Deformed wing virus (DWV) of honeybees (Apis mellifera) is closely associated with characteristic wing deformities, abdominal bloating, paralysis, and rapid mortality of emerging adult bees. The virus was purified from diseased insects, and its genome was cloned and sequenced. The genomic RNA of DWV is 10,140 nucleotides in length and contains a si...

Self‐organizing systems are physical and biological systems in which pattern and structure at the global level arises solely from interactions among the lower‐level components of the system. The rules specifying interactions among the system's components are executed using only local information, without reference to the global pattern.

The complete nucleotide sequence of a novel virus is presented here together with serological evidence that it belongs to Kashmir bee virus (KBV). Analysis reveals that KBV is a cricket paralysis-like virus (family Dicistroviridae: genus Cripavirus), with a non-structural polyprotein open reading frame in the 5' portion of the genome separated by a...

Many of the collective activities performed by social insects result in the formation of complex spatio-temporal patterns. Without centralized control, workers are able to work together and collectively tackle tasks far beyond the abilities of any one individual. The resulting patterns produced by a colony are not explicitly coded at the individual...

The new focus on self-organizing processes links such diverse natural phenomena as a zebra's stripes and a mound of termites.

Self-Organization in Biological Systems

ISMIS 2002. Abstracts of the Fourth International Symposium on Molecular Insect Science. Abstracts are listed in alphabetical order by the last name of the senior author.

ISMIS 2002. Abstracts of the Fourth International Symposium on Molecular Insect Science. Abstracts are listed in alphabetical order by the last name of the senior author.

Social organisms are especially vulnerable to pathogens due to the homogeneity of the colony, and the close proximity and extensive interactions among its members. However, the social organization of these groups also offers the potential to provide an effective barrier against the transmission of pathogens within the colony. Social insects with th...

The degree to which a disease evolves to be virulent depends, in part, on whether the pathogen is transmitted horizontally or vertically. Eusocial insect colonies present a special case since the fitness of the pathogen depends not only on the ability to infect and spread between individuals within a colony, but also on the ability to spread to new...

Many physiological systems appear to have safety margins, with excess capacity relative to normal functional needs, but the significance of such excess capacity remains controversial. In this study, we investigate the effects of parasitic tracheal mites (Acarapis woodi) on the safety margin for oxygen delivery and flight performance of honeybees. T...

We investigated the defensive behavior of honeybees under controlled experimental conditions. During an attack on two identical targets, the spatial distribution of stings varied as a function of the total number of stings, evincing the classic "pitchfork bifurcation" phenomenon of nonlinear dynamics. The experimental results support a model of def...

Thousands of individuals in a house-hunting honey bee swarm make a collective decision for one among many nest sites discovered. We recorded the dances on swarms in a forested area, where one swarm's search en- compassed about 150 km2 and many different sites. We then analyzed swarms in a desert area with only nest sites that we provided and monito...

Honey bees (Apis mellifera) in house-hunting swarms perform vibration signals (dorsoventral abdominal vibration (DVAV)) of 18.05 ± 0.45 Hz for 1.36 ± 0.23 s throughout the house selection process. These signals are performed by a specialized subset of bees, most of whom never perform recruitment dances to nest sites. Individuals repeatedly vibrate...

We placed small temperature monitoring devices inside queen shipments from across the U.S., during May and June, 1998. A total of 19 queen shipments, each containing 8 to 10 queens, were received from queen producers in California, Texas, Hawaii, Georgia and Tennessee. Shipping methods included the U.S. Postal Service (Priority Mail, Express Mail a...

Stinging events involving honey bees and wasps are rare; most deaths or clinically important incidents involve very few stings (< 10) and anaphylactic shock. However, mass stinging events can prove life-threatening via the toxic action of the venom when injected in large amounts. With the advent of the Africanized honey bee in the southwestern Unit...

In a remarkable example of collective decision-making, swarms of honeybees, Apis mellifera, choose one of many nest sites discovered and reported by their scouts. At first, dancing scouts communicate the location of many sites, but within a few days all dances focus on the same high-quality site. Instead of swarms acquiring global information by di...

Thousands of individuals in a honeybee swarm make a collective decision for one among many nest sites discovered. We recorded the waggle dances on swarms in a forested area, where one swarm’s search encompassed about 150 km2 and discovered about 50 different sites. We also analyzed swarms in a more controlled situation, with only nest sites which w...

The collective decisions and patterns discussed in this section are examples of processes based upon behavioral rules of thumb [1] executed by individuals which have only limited access to global information. Most of these behavioral rules can be expressed as relatively simple “if-then” statements which correspond to stimulus-response pairs based u...

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Pollen foragers quickly sense increases in colony pollen stores, and modify their foraging activity appropriately. In association with these changes in foraging behavior, nurse bees transfer a larger portion of newly synthesized C-14-phenylalanine-labeled protein to the foragers. These findings support the hypothesis that trophallactic interactions...

Self-organization was introduced originally in the context of physics and chemistry to describe how microscopic processes give rise to macroscopic stuctures in out-of-equilibrium systems, Recent research that extends this concept to ethology suggests that it provides a concise description of a wide range of collective phenomena in animals, especial...

The antennae of the sphinx moth Manduca sexta are multimodal sense organs, each comprising three segments: scape, pedicel, and flagellum. Each antenna is moved by two systems of muscles, one controlling the movement of the scape and consisting of five muscles situated in the head capsule (extrinsic muscles), and the other system located within the...

Thousands of honey bee colonies died in a region-wide epidemic in the northeastern United States during the winter and spring of 1995-96. In an effort to assess the tremendous colony losses, Pennsylvania bee-keepers were asked to provide information on their colony losses and treatments they applied. In all, 252 Pennsylvania beekeepers provided inf...

Conventional advice on immediate treatment of honey-bee stings has emphasised that the sting should be scraped off, never pinched. The morphology of the sting suggested little basis for this advice, which is likely to slow down removal of the sting. The response to honey-bee stings was assayed with a measurement of the size of the resulting weal. I...

A simple model is used to examine the role of movement and metabolism in the thermoregulation of a cluster of honeybees (A. mellifera mellifera). The thermoregulation is thought to be a result of individual bees attempting to regulate their own body temperatures between allowable limits. The bees respond to decreases in their immediate, or local, t...

This article explores the potential for applying ideas in collective intelligence to transportation systems. A number of biological, human and robot models are discussed. First, we examine the ability of insect societies to form transportation networks by simple positive feedback. Second, we show how the undesirable aggregation tendencies in buses...

Insektenstaaten sind faszinierendes Zeugnis dafür, wie unzählige Individuen gleichberechtigt agieren, um eine globale Ordnung zu entwickeln und zu erhalten. Die gemeinsame Futtersuche bei Ameisen und Honigbienen, die Wärmeregulierung in Bienenkolonien [1], die Kontrolle über Umgebungstemperatur, Luftfeuchtigkeit und Kohlendioxidgehalt in Termitenst...

The honey bee colony presents a challenging paradox. Like an organism, it functions as a coherent unit, carefully regulating its internal milieu. But the colony consists of thousands of loosely assembled individuals each functioning rather autonomously. How, then, does the colony acquire the necessary information to organize its work force? And how...

We present a simplified version of a previously presented model (Camazine et al. (1990)) that generates the characteristic pattern of honey, pollen and brood which develops on combs in honey bee colonies. We demonstrate that the formation of a band of pollen surrounding the brood area is dependent on the assumed form of the honey and pollen removal...

A characteristic pattern of brood, pollen, and honey develops on the combs of a honey bee colony, consisting of three distinct concentric regions — a central brood area, a surrounding rim of pollen, and a large peripheral region of honey. That the pattern is consistent and well-organized suggests its adaptive value for the colony, yet the mechanism...

The honey bee colony chooses among different nectar sources available in the field, selectively foraging from those which are most profitable. We present a model that describes the colony's decision-making process. The model consists of a system of non-linear differential equations describing the activity of the foraging bees. Parameter estimates a...

A honey bee colony can skillfully choose among nectar sources. It will selectively exploit the most profitable source in an array and will rapidly shift its foraging efforts following changes in the array. How does this colony-level ability emerge from the behavior of individual bees? The answer lies in understanding how bees modulate their colony'...

We present a mathematical model that generates the characteristic concentric pattern of brood, pollen and honey which develops on the combs of a honeybee colony. Parameter estimates are derived from experimental observations and previously published data. Numerical solutions of the model equations exhibit patterns similar to those observed in honey...

In Oswego, a city in upstate New York, a search for all honey bee, Apis mellifera L., colonies in an area of 4.2 km' (1.6 square miles) revealed 12 colonies. All but one of the colonies were feral, living in tree cavities and the walls of buildings. The observed density was 2.7 colonies per km2 (7.0 feral colonies per square mile). Oswego may be co...

Most people have an overwhelming fear of venomous animals. At times, this attitude takes on phobic proportions, making it difficult to maintain a proper perspective on the problem of stinging insects. However, in terms of numbers of fatalities, insect stings are actually a minor health problem. The major offenders are bees, wasps, yellowjackets, ho...

In 1956, 47 Apis mellifera scutellata queens from Africa were introduced to Brazil, in anticipation that they would be better adapted to the tropical conditions than the European A. mellifera. In 1957, 26 swarms escaped, and Africanized hybrids (morphologically, behaviourally and ecologically so close to the African subspecies that they are treated...

Recent surveys of honey bee colony mortality due to the external parasite Varroa jacobsoni (Oudemans) suggest that the virulence of this mite pest may be affected by climate or honey bee race. The latter possibility was tested by examining the effect of varroa infestation on colonies of Africanized and European bees in Brazil. Infestation of varroa...

The legless larvae of the fungus gnat Mycetophila cingulum Meigen leap distances up to 20-fold their body length. Leaping occurs during the prepupal stage when larvae disperse from the host fungus, Polyporus squamosus Micheli ex Fr., to pupate in the substrate. A larva curls into a tight loop and snaps forward, catapulting itself as much as 15 cm....

Visual and acoustic cues may serve as aposematic signals that warn predators of poisonous foods. Olfactory aposematism, the use of innocuous odors as warning signals for toxic foods, is another possible means of alerting an animal that a potential food item is unpalatable. Although it has been suggested that olfactory aposematism might be the princ...

The tenebrionid beetle Bolitotherus cornutus everts a pair of quinone-producing defensive glands in response to mammalian breath. Experiments with a controlled airstream indicate that the beetle recognizes breath on the basis of temperature, humidity, and airflow dynamics. Under attack by mice the beetle everts the glands immediately upon being mou...

The aerobiology of the skunk cabbage, Symplocarpus foetidus (L.) Nutt., is examined as a factor contributing to efficient pollination and temperature regulation around the spadix. Field measurements show that the compass orientation of the asymmetrical opening of the spathe is random, while wind tunnel studies reveal that similar patterns of airflo...

The aerobiology of the skunk cabbage, Symplocarpus foetidus (l.) Nutt., is examined as a factor contributing to efficient pollination and temperature regulation around the spadix. Field measurements show that the compass orientation of the asymmetrical opening of the spathe is random, while wind tunnel studies reveal that similar patterns of airflo...

Wild animals eat fungi, yet mushroom poisonings in nature are unknown. The opossumDidelphis virginiana readily consumed the toxic mushroomAmanita muscaria, became ill, and then developed an aversion to the fungus. Both the illness and the aversion were due, in part at least, to the toxin muscimol. This appears to be the first demonstration of a mus...

A new bioassay employing a natural fungivore, the opossumDidelphis virginiana, is described. Using this bioasssay, eighteen species of fungi were tested for palatability. Five species of mushrooms, all of which taste pungent to humans, were found to be unpalatable to the opossum. From the least palatable of these,Lentinellus ursinus, the pungent pr...

Field observations showed orb-weaving spiders (Argiope spp.) to undergo leg autotomy if they are stung in a leg by venomous insect prey (Phymata fasciata). The response occurs within seconds, before the venom can take lethal action by spread to the body of the spiders. Autotomy is induced also by honeybee venom and wasp venom, as well as by several...

The acetylenic acid,Z-dihydromatricaria acid (DHMA), previously isolated from the defensive secretion ofChauliognathus lecontei, and now shown to occur also inC. pennsylvanicus, is a potent feeding deterrent to jumping spiders (Phidippus spp.). A simple bioassay withPhidippus is described, which is generally applicable to studies dealing with the i...

This paper examines the medical ethnobotany of the Zuni Indians of west-central New Mexico. Historically, these people were hunters and gatherers, and later, farmers and sheepherders. They developed an extensive knowledge of the local flora and a complex religious rite and system of medical practice. Now, as customs and values of Western societies...

PIP The Zuni Indians of New Mexico have access to medical care provided by the Public Health Service, native healers belonging to medicine societies, and folk remedies. The Zuni regard natural causes, sorcery, disease-object intrusion and breach of taboo as the origins of illness. Case materials are presented to illustrate the pragmatic manner in w...

A method is described for the dissociation of rat glomerular cells in vitro. Isolated endothelial cells were characterized by the persistence of fenestrae. Mesangial cells showed a variety of morphologic appearances; if dissociation was performed after an intravenous injection of ferritin, such cells were identified by the presence of large ferriti...