PRF: Social Homeostasis in Honey Bee Colonies: Behavior, Physiology and Genetics

通过对蜜蜂社会组织的行为、遗传和生理分析，研究复杂昆虫社会中调节社会稳态的机制。被认为有助于灵活的群体对环境变化的反应的行为机制将在实验条件下进行研究，并首次在社会结构的自然变化中进行研究，这些变化是由群体裂变和蜜蜂独特的越冬模式引起的。我们将进一步探讨调节个体工蜂行为发展的激素机制，以确定它是否也作为一个群体整合机制，通过改变行为阈值来响应环境和群体条件。在这些研究中使用的所有实验蜜蜂都将携带遗传标记，从而确定工蜂可塑性在行为和生理方面可能存在的基因型差异。这些研究有望为昆虫社会性行为可塑性的控制机制提供一个全面的解释，从而有助于理解昆虫社会中群体整合的基本目标。这项工作将在俄亥俄州立大学进行两年，并得到环境生物学博士后奖学金的资助。

The mechanisms regulating social homeostasis in a complex insect society will be studied by integrating behavioral, genetic, and physiological analyses of honey bee social organization. Behavioral mechanisms thought to contribute to flexible colony responses to environmental change will be studied under experimental conditions and, for the first time, during natural changes in social structure that occur as a result of colony fission and the honey bee's unique mode of overwintering. A hormonal mechanism known to regulate individual worker behavioral development will be probed further to determine whether it also acts as a colony integrating mechanism by altering behavioral thresholds in response to environmental and colony conditions. All experimental bees used in these investigations will bear genetic markers, enabling determination of possible genotypic differences in both behavioral and physiological aspects of worker plasticity. These studies promise to provide a comprehensive account of the mechanisms governing social insect behavioral plasticity, and so contribute toward the fundamental goal of understanding colony integration in the insect societies. The work will proceed for two years at Ohio State University under sponsorship of a postdoctoral fellowship in environmental biology.