Gayatri Anand, (Ph.D.) University of Maryland, College Park, Biology, “Collective defense in social insects: Understanding anti-predatory shimmering in the Asian giant honeybee,” India.   

Colonies of the open-nesting Asian giant honeybee (Apis dorsata) exhibit a visually stunning anti-predatory collective behavior known as “shimmering” which involves the synchronized flipping of bees’ abdomens leading to the formation of traveling waves on the hive surface, like ‘the wave’ in a sports stadium. Shimmering waves propagate across the hive surface in a fraction of a second and have been shown to repel predators like wasps and birds. These waves form characteristic patterns that resemble many other systems of self-organization in biology. However, the mechanisms through which these patterns of synchronous behavior begin, persist, and cease during shimmering remain poorly understood. This study aims to bridge this knowledge gap by collecting high-resolution videos of shimmering to parametrize an agent-based model that will explore how local interactions between individuals can lead to the emergence of colony-wide synchrony. Findings from this project will also shed light on how information can be processed quickly and effectively in large animal groups in a dynamic and noisy environment, and how interactions between behavioral and physiological responses can lead to complex patterns of synchronization.

Verena Conkin, (Ph.D.), Georgetown University, Biology, “Assessing demographic structure and recovery from a morbillivirus epidemic among Tamanend’s bottlenose dolphins,” Chesapeake Bay VA. 

Among long-lived species, the mounting threats of climate change, disease outbreaks, and anthropogenic threats pose an existential problem. Following an epidemic of cetacean morbillivirus in 2013-2015 that devastated populations of Tamanend’s bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops erebennus) from New York to Florida, recovery statuses remain unclear. In the lower Potomac River and mid-Chesapeake Bay, Tamanend’s bottlenose dolphins are seasonally present, with large numbers of dependent calves and newborns being sighted in the summer months, and many individuals frequently sighted year after year. Research efforts by the Potomac-Chesapeake Dolphin Project have documented over two thousand individuals from 2015 to the present day, providing a rich dataset of sighting records, reproductive histories, and social relationships. This project, in seeking to answer basic questions about underlying demographic structure and population recovery, launched a new data collection method in 2024, using unoccupied aerial systems (UAS, or drones) to precisely capture individual-level morphometric data. This research project will continue to continue gathering such data in the coming year to help describe the current demographic structure of these populations a decade after a devastating disease epidemic, and predict their trajectory into the future through recovery.

Lucas Micheels, (Ph.D.), The George Washington University, Biology, “Probing larval defenses and their developmental novelties in slug caterpillar moths (Lepidoptera, Limacodidae),” Peru.

The Limacodidae are an economically and medically important family of moths displaying a fascinating array of larval diversity of which much is still unknown. The caterpillars of more than half of the described species in this family of approximately 2000 moths remain undescribed. Many boast staggering arrays of spines mounted on tubercles, which can cause reactions ranging from mild itching to severe dermatitis in humans. While initial strides have been made to uncover the composition of these venoms and their evolution within this group, there are many gaps in knowledge that could be filled by sampling a diverse array of species, such as those found in the Peruvian Amazon. The awardee will travel to Tambopata, Peru for a duration of four weeks to collect caterpillars and eggs for the purpose of both describing novel morphological forms and life histories of previously unknown caterpillars, as well as harvesting venom for compositional analysis. This expedition will result in data on life histories on all collected taxa with undescribed immature stages, as well as critical data for a study of venom evolution in the spiny tribe Eucleini, and characterization of the composition of droplets produced by the non-spiny tribe Limacodini.

Victoria Rainis (Ph.D.), George Washington University, Anthropology, “Identifying anthropogenic pyrotechnology on an Early Pleistocene landscape,” Kenya.

After domestication, the control of fire (pyrotechnology) represents an essential transformation in human history. Despite years of inquiry, the origin of pyrotechnology is largely unknown. Identifying anthropogenic pyrotechnology (human control of fire) is challenging because fire is ubiquitous on ancient landscapes, requiring techniques to distinguish types of combustion unique to human pyrotechnology. Recent methodological advances use microscopic features of ancient sediments to tease apart these details. This study proposes applying new methodological breakthroughs to identify the earliest proposed localities with evidence of combustion dating to 1.5 million years ago. The proposed study site, located in the Turkana Basin, northern Kenya, is suggested as the earliest instance of human pyrotechnology, twice as old as confirmed sites. Newly developed geoarchaeological methods will be applied, initially applied to much younger sites (<30,000 years old). These methods will quantify color changes on ancient sediments and morphological shifts in microscopic charcoal. Previous investigations demonstrate their effectiveness in identifying combustion and burning temperature, indicating they can aid in differentiating between anthropogenic combustion and wildfires. This is the first usage of both methods in this antiquity. This research has implications for understanding the origins of hominin fire usage and how this has contributed to human evolution.