Honey Bee Neurobiology and Behavior Program

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This award provides funds to the Department of Entomology at the University of Illinois at Urbana to establish a summer research program that focuses on the behavior and neuroanatomy of honey bees. Students will have the unique opportunity to combine compelling fieldwork with modern laboratory techniques. Student training will be a three-fold process. First, lectures will be given on the structure and function of the insect nervous system; the hormonal regulation of insect metamorphosis and neural development; the hormonal regulation of insect behavior; and experimental design. Second, students will receive practical training in the safe handling of colonies of honey bees and in observation of honey bee behavior, and ample opportunity to practice these new skills. Third, students will also receive laboratory instruction in histological techniques for the light microscopic study of the insect nervous system. Each student will then carry out a research project in which an aspect of bee brain morphology, cell number, neurochemistry, neurotransmitter expression, gene expression, or hormonal responsiveness etc. is studied in bees of known age and behavioral status. The goal of this project is to introduce students who already have an interest in neuroscience and behavioral biology to the value of social insects as models for the study of the neurobiology of complex behavior. This project represents and extension of an ongoing collaboration between two laboratories in the Department of Entomology and the Neuroscience Program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It will be based in the Bee Research Facility and two other well-equipped laboratories in the Department of Entomology.