Colony-level Response to Perturbation
{'Code': '08090200', 'Directorate': {'Abbreviation': 'BIO', 'LongName': 'Direct For Biological Sciences'}, 'Division': {'Abbreviation': 'IOS', 'LongName': 'Division Of Integrative Organismal Systems'}}
{'SignBlockName': 'Fred Stollnitz', 'PO_EMAI': None, 'PO_PHON': None}
Dr. Gordon will investigate the social organization of harvester ants,          so called because they collect and eat seeds.  These ants do various            tasks outside the nest.  Foragers travel along cleared trails to collect        seeds; nest-maintenance workers clear the surface of the nest mound and         maintain tunnels inside the nest; patrollers inspect the nest area and          respond to disturbances or new sources of food, and midden workers sort         and arrange the colony refuse pile, or midden.  Each task is done each          day, in a predictable sequence that Dr. Gordon calls the "daily round"          of the colony.                                                                                                                                                  The daily round changes in response to changes in the colony's                  environment.  Dr. Gordon has found experimentally that groups of ants           doing different tasks are interdependent.  For example, if she increases        the amount of nest maintenance by giving the colony extra work to do,           the colony will also do less foraging.  These interactions between              different worker groups depend on the age of the colony.  When disturbed        experimentally, 5-year-old colonies emphasize foraging more than do 2-          year-old colonies.  The older colonies also respond in the same way if          an experiment is repeated many times, while younger colonies respond in         many different ways.  As individual ants live only about a year, this           cannot be because 5-year-old colonies contain older, "wiser" ants than          do 2-year-old colonies.  Somehow, the organization of the colony must           change as it gets older.                                                                                                                                        Dr. Gordon will carry out experiments designed to help answer the               following questions:  (1)  When an increase in the numbers doing one            task causes a decrease in the numbers doing another task, is this               because ants are switching tasks, or do increases result from                   recruitment of ants from reserves inside the nest?  Dr. Gordon will mark        ants distinctively to identify individuals.  (2)  Do older colonies             respond to experiments differently from younger colonies because they           are older, or because they contain more ants?  Dr. Gordon will remove           ants from older colonies to see if they then act like younger, smaller          colonies.  (3)  Do experiments that change the behavior of one colony           cause changes in the behavior of neighboring colonies?  If so, this may         help to explain how colonies interact in an environment in which they           are competing for food.                                                                                                                                         Dr. Gordon's research will help us to understand how a complex society          functions at the group level.  A forager's behavior depends on the              conditions affecting foraging:  where food is, how accessible it is, how        much food the colony has.  But Dr. Gordon's experiments show that a             forager's behavior also depends on events affecting the ants doing other        tasks--for example, on how much clean-up work there is to be done on the        nest mound.  The dynamics of relationships between different worker             groups suggest a complex model for how an ant society functions in an           ever-changing environment.  Such models may apply to other societies as         well.
{'FirstName': 'Deborah', 'LastName': 'Gordon', 'PI_MID_INIT': 'M', 'PI_SUFX_NAME': None, 'PI_FULL_NAME': 'Deborah M Gordon', 'EmailAddress': 'dmgordon@stanford.edu', 'NSF_ID': '000264076', 'StartDate': '05/15/1987', 'EndDate': None, 'RoleCode': 'Principal Investigator'}
{'Name': 'Harvard University', 'CityName': 'CAMBRIDGE', 'ZipCode': '021385366', 'PhoneNumber': '6174955501', 'StreetAddress': '1033 MASSACHUSETTS AVE STE 3', 'StreetAddress2': None, 'CountryName': 'United States', 'StateName': 'Massachusetts', 'StateCode': 'MA', 'CONGRESSDISTRICT': '05', 'CONGRESS_DISTRICT_ORG': 'MA05', 'ORG_UEI_NUM': 'LN53LCFJFL45', 'ORG_LGL_BUS_NAME': 'PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE', 'ORG_PRNT_UEI_NUM': None}
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{'Code': '1160', 'Text': 'IBN ANIMAL BEHAVIOR'}
{'url': 'https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/download?DownloadFileName=1987&All=true', 'xml': '8701480.xml'}