Learning to communicate: How do pheromones work in social and solitary bees and how did they evolve?

这个项目将联合收割机行为生态学与分子方法相结合，以了解通讯机制如何工作以及它们是如何进化的。这个项目将使用孤独的蜜蜂（如红mason蜜蜂壁蜂bicornis）和社会蜜蜂，如蜜蜂和熊蜂来解决这个问题。通信不仅是社会蜂群功能的核心，也是孤独的蜜蜂交配和其他种内通信。通过实验室和实地研究的结合，该项目还将解决这些基本通信是否会受到环境影响的破坏，例如气候变化和独居蜜蜂和群居蜜蜂的杀虫剂暴露。该项目直接解决了进化生物学中的一个关键问题，但也具有实际意义。蜜蜂被集中管理用于作物授粉，每年为英国经济贡献6.51亿英镑，对我们的粮食供应安全至关重要。了解如何在不伤害有益昆虫（如传粉昆虫）的情况下控制害虫物种至关重要。更多地了解社会性昆虫和独居蜜蜂的功能将有助于实现这些目标。最终，希望这些重要昆虫的基本生物学知识也将有助于为旨在维持英国和全球蜜蜂生物多样性的保护工作提供信息。

This project will combine behavioural ecology with molecular approaches to understand how mechanisms of communication work and how they evolved. This project will use solitary bees (e.g. the red mason bee Osmia bicornis) and social bees like honeybees and bumblebees to address this question.Communication is not only central to the function of social bee colonies but also for mating and other intra-species communication in solitary bees. Using a combination of laboratory and field studies this project will also address whether these fundamental communications are disrupted by environmental influences, like climate change and pesticide exposures in solitary and social bees.This project directly addresses a key question in evolutionary biology but also has practical importance. The honeybee is intensively managed for pollination of crops contributing £651 million to the British economy annually and is incredibly important for the security of our food supply. Understanding how to control pest species without harming beneficial insects, like pollinator species, is of paramount importance. Understanding more about how social insects and solitary bees function will assist with these goals. Ultimately it is hoped that this knowledge about the fundamental biology of these important insects will also help inform conservation efforts aimed at maintaining bee biodiversity in the UK and globally.