Planning and establishment of a high throughput screening site

In 1996 and 1997, Glaxo Wellcome's US Research division planned and established their second generation research strategy. An important aspect of the strategy entailed development of two automated screening sites in Biochemistry in Research Triangle Park, NC. Development of the new operations required many decisions to be made very quickly, including automated process design, system selection and site preparation. Descriptions of the decision made in the development of one of the screening sites are presented in this paper

The Guild of Sawgrass-Inhabiting Ants in the Florida Keys

Volume: 89Start Page: 351End Page: 35

The social behavior of Leptothorax Mlardycei (Hymenoptera, Formicidae): time budgets and the evolution of worker reproduction

Summary. The use of time by workers of the ant Leptothorax allardycei (Mann) is examined. Theoretical predictions are developed concerning the maximal lowering in colony reproductive output that is consistent with the evolution of worker production. Measurements are made of the effect of aggression on colony efficiency. Analysis of time budgets indicate that a typical ant spends a large fraction (0.55) of its time quiescent and another large fraction of time (0.32) involved in undifferentiated activity. Dominance activity and brood care together make up about 11% of the total time. The amount of time spent on dominance activity is negatively related to the amount of time spent on brood care, but positively related to the amount of time that an ant is active. The amount of time that an ant has available for brood care which is actually spent on brood care declines with the amount of time spent on dominance activity. The amount of time that a worker spends feeding liquid food to larvae is a function of hierarchy rank; alpha spends the most time, beta less and gamma still less. The spread of the trait of worker reproduction is examined theoretically, with particular regard to the associated costs to colony reproduction. Worker reproduction can spread through a population, under a variety of formulations, provided the cost to colony reproduction is less than some critical value in the neighborhood of 0.17-0.22 of the total colony output. The cost of worker reproduction in L. allardycei is estimated in two ways: as a time cost and as a reduction in the total number of brood tended per unit time. The two estimates of cost are 0.15 and 0.13 respectively. The reproductive options of the worker caste and the division of reproductive labor vary considerably between species. Reproduction by workers yields fitness differences between workers and results in competition among workers with the result that colony efficiency is affected

Data from: Offspring size and reproductive allocation in harvester ants

A fundamental decision that an organism must make is how to allocate resources to offspring, both with respect to size and to number. The two major theoretical approaches to this problem, optimal offspring size and optimistic brood size models, make different predictions that may be reconciled by including how offspring fitness is related to size. We extended the reasoning of Trivers and Willard (1973) to derive a general model of how parents should allocate additional resources with respect to the number of males and females produced, and among individuals of each sex, based on the fitness payoffs of each. We then predicted how harvester ant colonies should invest additional resources, and tested three hypotheses derived from our model, using data from three years of food supplementation bracketed by six years without food addition. All major results were predicted by our model: Food supplementation increased the number of reproductives produced. Male, but not female, size increased with food addition; the greatest increases in male size occurred in colonies that made small females. We discuss how use of a fitness landscape improves quantitative predictions about allocation decisions. When parents can invest differentially in offspring of different types, the best strategy will depend on parental state as well as the effect of investment on offspring fitness