Daniel Charbonneau
Advisor: Anna Dornhaus
I am broadly interested in studying emergent behavior in social insects with a special focus on complex systems and interactive networks.
My current research looks at “lazy” ants within Temnothorax colonies and will attempt to determine whether worker inactivity is actually adaptive for the colony, perhaps by acting as a labour reserve or by performing an as-yet unidentified function, inactivity is a non-adaptive (neutral) epiphenomenon that does not significantly impact colony function, or inactivity arises from a worker/colony conflict, perhaps through interference or selfishness.
My past research includes work on the forest tent caterpillar (Malacosoma disstria), modeling population dynamics at the landscape scale. Having explored population dynamics at a very large scale, I am now interested in looking at the opposite end of the spectrum, focusing on dynamics happening at the individual level.
Honors and Awards:
Prior Appointments:
Charbonneau D, Dornhaus A, 2012, Are “lazy” ants actually shift workers? A look at individual and colony activity patterns over 24h of the ant Temnothorax rugatulus. In preparation
Levandowski, M, J Jandt, D Charbonneau, A Dornhaus. 2012. The Jumble Bee Nest: Are bumble bee nests organized and does it matter? In preparation
Charbonneau D, Blonder B, Dornhaus A, 2012, Social insects: a model system for network dynamics. Springer Book Chapter, Submitted
Charbonneau, D, F Lorenzetti, Y Mauffette, F Doyon. 2010. The influence of stand and landscape characteristics on forest tent caterpillar defoliation dynamics: the case of the 1999-2002 outbreak in northwestern Quebec. Canadian Journal of Forest Research. In press
