CAREER: Organization of Social Structure and its Influence on Transmission Dynamics in a Honeybee Colony

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。就像任何其他大型社会群体一样，蜜蜂群体严重依赖于个体之间物质和信息的有效传递。然而，使这成为可能的相互作用网络也容易被病原体或其他有害物质利用，这些病原体或其他有害物质可以迅速传播并感染大量可用的宿主，对该群体构成严重挑战。在蜂群中，基于任务的个体分离为行为和空间上不同的子集提供了一种潜在的机制，通过这种机制，蜂群可以抵抗传染性病原体的传播，了解其细节可以为了解社会群体的组织结构如何影响传染病的传播提供重要的见解。该项目的目标是在个体层面上从行为和生理机制的角度了解蜂群中的相互作用网络，网络的结构和功能特性如何促进蜂群内的物质流动，以及个体层面的生理和行为改变如何改变网络结构并改变感染反应的传播模式。该项目还将对动物行为和疾病生态学进行探究式调查，以促使小学至五年级的学生，特别是女孩参与科学，并促使小学至五年级的教师在实际动手研究的基础上开发科学课程。该项目将扩大本科生的职业选择，让他们参与课堂教学，并有助于他们成为科学家和教育工作者。了解社会结构对蜜蜂疾病的影响使这项研究及时地解决了最近对蜜蜂健康的关注，这是一个具有国家重要性的话题，但对于扩展我们对生物网络的初级知识也很重要。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).Just like any other large social group, the honeybee colony critically relies on an efficient transfer of material and information among individuals. The interaction network which makes this possible is, however, also open to exploitation by pathogens or other harmful agents which can rapidly spread and infect the large number of available hosts, posing a serious challenge for the group. In a honeybee colony, the task based separation of individuals into behaviorally and spatially distinct subsets offers a potential mechanism by which the colony can resist the spread of an infectious pathogen and understanding its details can thus provide important insights into how the organizational structure of a social group can influence the transmission of an infectious disease. The objectives of this project are to understand the interaction network in a honeybee colony in terms of the behavioral and physiological mechanisms at the individual level, how the structural and functional properties of the network contribute to material flow within the colony, and how individual-level physiological and behavioral alterations could change the network structure and alter transmission patterns in response to infections. The project will also use inquiry-based investigations in animal behavior and disease ecology to get K-5 students, especially girls, involved in science and K-5 teachers motivated to develop science curriculum based on actual hands-on research. The project will widen the career options for undergraduates by involving them in classroom teaching and contributing to their training as scientists and educators. Understanding the influence of social structure on honeybee diseases makes this study timely to address the recent concern about the health of honeybees, a topic of national importance but also important for extending our still incipient knowledge of biological networks in general.