Projects in Behaviour and Genetics of Social Insects Laboratory available for 2011

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Projects available for 2011 can be downloaded here or visit the Social Insects Lab homepage.

Who are we?

Ben Oldroyd, Madeleine Beekman, Tanya Latty, Tim Schaerf and Vanina Vergoz.

What do we do?

Behavioural ecology, behavioural genetics and molecular genetics of social insects. Recently we have also acquired a new ‘lab rat’ a gigantic slime mould that can make foraging decisions despite having no brain or nervous system. We study honey bees (particularly Thai and African ones), ants, Australian native stingless bees and the slime mould. We are particularly interested in cheating behaviour: when workers start laying eggs or changing caste. We also study collective decision making: how do social insects decide on a new nest site, or how best to allocate their foragers to food sources? We offer projects ranging from field biology to molecular genetics and mathematical modeling.

What is our approach to Honours supervision?

You will be treated as a colleague not a student. We promote a highly supportive and friendly environment. You will get heaps of help at every stage. We encourage Honours students to publish their work and we pay for their attendance at conferences. Most of our Honours students publish senior-authored papers. A refereed publication is very helpful for acquiring an Australian Post Graduate Award. In the last five years two of our students were awarded University medals. Jessica Higgs was awarded the Smith-White prize for the best thesis in genetics. Frances Goudie received the Smith White prize for Genetics AND the Jabez King Heydon Memorial Prize in zoology.

What are our facilities?

You will learn a lot in our lab. We have excellent molecular equipment including an ABI 3130 DNA analyzer. We have a fully equipped apiary, an observation hive room, nice field work facilities and even a bee truck with crane. Our support staff currently include a full time beekeeper and a full time molecular biologist. The support staff are there to help you get the best possible training and a productive year. The group has the critical mass to provide a stimulating intellectual environment. We have good financial support for 2012 and beyond. We have the international networks to help students establish a career in biological science.

Who are our collaborators?

Visual Sciences Group, ANU Canberra; Chulalongkorn University Bangkok, Bee Biology group, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa; Computer Science, Leipzig University. Students are encouraged to be involved in these collaborations.

Want more info? See below and our web site.

Papers arising from Honours projects in Social Insects Lab during the last 5 years

Papers arising from Honours projects in Social Insects Lab during the last 5 years (student name
in bold)

• Beekman, M., M. H. Allsopp, L. A. Jordan, J. Lim, and B. P. Oldroyd. 2009. A quantitative study of worker reproduction in queenright colonies of the Cape honey bee, Apis mellifera capensis. Mol. Ecol. 18:2722-2727.
• Chapman, N. C., B. P. Oldroyd, and W. O. H. Hughes. 2007. Differential responses of honeybee (Apis mellifera) genotypes to changes in stimuli for generalist tasks. Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 61:1185-1194.
• Gloag, R. S., T. A. Heard, M. Beekman, and B. P. Oldroyd. 2007. No worker reproduction in the Australian stingless bee, Trigona carbonaria Smith (Hymenoptera: Apidae). Ins. Soc. 54:412-417.
• Gloag, R. S., T. A. Heard, M. Beekman, and B. P. Oldroyd. 2008. Nest defence in a stingless bee: What causes fighting swarms in Trigona carbonaria (Hymenoptera, Meliponini)? Ins. Soc. 55:387-391.
• Higgs, J. S., M. McHale, and B. P. Oldroyd. 2010. A scientific note on a rapid method for the molecular discrimination of Apis andreniformis and A. florea. Apidologie 41:96-98.
• Higgs, J. S., W. Wattanachaiyingcharoen, and B. P. Oldroyd. 2009. A scientific note on a genetically-determined colour morph of the dwarf honey bee, Apis andreniformis (Smith, 1858). Apidologie 40:513-514.
• Holmes, M. J., M. H. Allsopp, L.-A. Noach-Pienaar, T. C. Wossler, B. P. Oldroyd, and M. Beekman. 2010a. Sperm utilization in South African honeybees (Apis mellifera scutellata and A. m. capensis). Apidologie In Press.
• Holmes, M. J., B. P. Oldroyd, M. H. Allsopp, J. Lim, T. C. Wossler, and M. Beekman. 2010b. Maternity of emergency queen cells in the Cape honey bee, Apis mellifera capensis. Mol. Ecol. 19:2792–2799.
• Jordan, L. A., M. Allsopp, M. Beekman, and B. P. Oldroyd. 2007. A scientific note on the drone flight time of Apis mellifera capensis and A. m. scutellata. Apidologie 38:436-437.
• Jordan, L. A., M. Allsopp, M. Beekman, T. C. Wossler, and B. P. Oldroyd. 2008a. Inheritance of traits associated with reproductive potential in Apis mellifera capensis and A. m. scutellata workers. J. Hered. 99:376 - 381.
• Jordan, L. A., M. H. Allsopp, B. P. Oldroyd, T. C. Wossler, and M. Beekman. 2008b. Cheating honeybee workers produce royal offspring. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B 275:345-351.
• Oldroyd, B. P., M. H. Allsopp, R. S. Gloag, J. Lim, L. A. Jordan, and M. Beekman. 2008a. Thelytokous parthenogenesis in unmated queen honey bees (Apis florea): central fusion and high recombination rates. Genetics 180:359-366.
• Oldroyd, B. P., R. S. Gloag, N. Even, W. Wattanachaiyingcharoen, and M. Beekman. 2008b. Nest site selection in the open-nesting honeybee Apis florea. Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 62:1643-1653.
• Wongvilas, S., J. S. Higgs, M. Beekman, W. Wattanachaiyingcharoen, S. Deowanish, and B. Oldroyd. 2010. Lack of inter-specific parasitism between the dwarf honeybees Apis andreniformis and A. florea. Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 64:1165-1170.

1. Anarchy in the beehive

After many years of selective breeding, our laboratory has developed a line of honey bees in which workers lay eggs at high frequency. We call these bees anarchistic. Anarchistic bees do precisely the opposite thing to ordinary honey bees, providing us with an experimental opportunity to study how sterility is enforced in ordinary bees. The topic of worker sterility is of great theoretical interest and a multitude of experiments remain to be done with these bees, ranging from highly molecular laboratorybased studies to behavioural or manipulative field-based studies. Our laboratory is unique in the world in having access to this mutant stock, and this provides the opportunity for some really groundbreaking work by motivated students with an interest in genetic aspects of animal behaviour. We have mapped the gene(s) that control worker sterility to a small region on chromosome 1 that contains about 150 genes. Its now time to do the functional genomics: using small interfering RNAs to knock down each gene in turn and observe changes in reproductive behaviour, and checking gene expression levels between reproductively active and inactive workers. There are four major gene candidates. There are three left to be studied with RNA interference.

Techniques: RNA interference, Quantitative PCR, transcriptome analysis, beekeeping.

Reference: Beekman M, Oldroyd BP (2008) When workers disunite: Intraspecific parasitism in eusocial bees. Annual Review of Entomology 53:19-37

Start: Depends on project selected.

2. Heat tolerance in honey bees

As you may recall from your population genetics prac in second year, the malate dehydrogenase enzyme (MDH) of honey bees has three common alleles, or electromorphs ('fast', 'medium' and 'slow'). The medium allele is common in cold-climate populations, and the protein it encodes has been shown to be less stable than the other alleles when heated in vitro. Moreover, MDH allelic frequencies show geographic clines on three continents, strongly suggesting that allele frequency is under environmentally-induced selective pressure with the medium allele being favoured in cold climates, and the heat resistant alleles being favoured in warm climates.

The project would involve a search for the selective benefits of the medium allele in cold climates. The project would suit a student with a good biochemical background, and an interest in population genetics.

Reference: Hatty S, Oldroyd BP (1999) Evidence for temperature-dependent selection for malate dehydrogenase allele frequencies in honeybee populations. Journal of Heredity. 90:565-568

Techniques: enzyme characterization, population modeling.

Start: Any time.

3. Biology of Austalian stingless bees

There are 12 species of Australian stingless bees. They are extremely understudied. One of our 2006/2007 Honours students, Ros Gloag, (now doing a PhD at Oxford with field work in Argentina) found some amazing things related to fighting swarms. But there are many other aspects that can be studied: recruitment mechanisms, nest site selection and much more. We definitely want to keep stingless bee research alive. So if interested, let's talk.

4. Foraging behaviour and decision-making in the slime mould, Physarum polycephalum

Our slime mould P. polycephalum is a giant, unicellular, amoeboid organism. Despite lacking a brain (or any organs at all) P. polycephalum has demonstrated a remarkable list of abilities: it can solve mazes, anticipate periodic events, alter its search pattern depending on recently consumed food items, and make trade-offs between light exposure (light is toxic to the slime mould) and food quality such that it will only venture into the light when the quality of food is sufficiently high. We have even demonstrated that a slime mould behaves rationally! We are interested in understanding how P. polycephalum makes decisions as well as developing a better understanding of its abilities. Some potential questions are: How does the organism's diet affect its subsequent foraging decisions? For example, do hungrier slime moulds make different decisions than well-fed slime moulds? Does hunger affect the speed of decision making? What algorithms underlie slime mould decision making behaviour? What factors (starvation, food quality/composition, previous experience) influence P. polycephalum's foraging behaviour? How do slime moulds asses the quality of a patch, and is this assessment influenced by past experiences?

5. Network formation by ants

Transportation networks are an important part of human society; they allow us to efficiently move people and resources from one place to another. Ants also form complex transportation networks between their nests and their food sites. We have recently found that the argentine ant, Linepithima humile, is capable of solving shortest path problems by building networks that minimize the total amount of trail needed to connect its nests. This is an astonishingly complex feat for an organism with a very tiny brain! We are interested in extending and continuing this work using argentine ants as well as other species. Projects in this area could include: mapping and analysing inter-nest networks in the field, investigating how networks change in response to new food sources or new nests, examining how networks change in response to disturbances, and studying how ants move through and use their networks.

6. Exploration versus exploitation in ants

Efficient foraging by an ant colony requires that some ants exploit food resources, while other ants search for new resources. Colonies, however, have a limited number of workers, so allocating individuals to exploit known resources means that that are fewer available to search for new resources. This is known as the exploration/exploitation trade-off. How do factors such as colony size, hunger level, resource type, number of resources and quality of resources influence the proportion of workers assigned to each task? This project could either focus on a single species, or could compare the exploration/exploitation trade-off in several species.

7. Can bees regulate intake of protein and carbohydrate?

Organisms must balance their intake of multiple nutrients if they are to survive and prosper. We know that organisms from humans to slime moulds have exquisite behavioural mechanisms for regulating intake of both protein and non-protein energy. But how do social insects maintain an appropriate supply of nutrients, when only a minority of individuals collect food for the whole colony? What are the nutritional feedbacks from the colony that direct the behaviours of foragers?

Honey bees obtain protein from pollen and carbohydrates from nectar. Foragers must collect the appropriate amount and ratio of these essential macronutrients for the colony's needs. In this project you will manipulate the concentration of pollen and sugar at feeding sites and see whether over time forager bees adjust the amount of each collected to maintain a constant rate and ratio of nutrient supply to the colony. You will also manipulate the colony's need for nutrients by manipulating the number of larvae.

You will be supervised jointly by Steve Simpson and the Social Insect Lab, gaining the benefits of the expertise of both groups.

8. Epigenetic inheritance in honey bees: consequence of the caste system or a battle of the sexes?

An unexpected finding of the honey bee genome project was that the honey bee has a fully-functional DNA methylation system which is absent from Drosophila. It was quickly shown that this system is used to cause differential expression of genes in queens and workers. But there are other reasons why honey bees might methylate their genes, and these are not yet understood. Honey bees are haplodiploid, and this means that males have grandsons, but no sons. It has been hypothesized that if males could manipulate their daughter workers to raising females preferentially to males they should. Thus 'patrigenes' inherited from males have different interests from 'matrigenes' inherited from queens. Your task would be to see if genes inherited from males and females show different methylation patterns.

References: Queller DC, Strassmann JE (2002) The many selves of social insects.

Science 296:311-313. Kucharski R, Maleszka J, Foret S, Maleszka R (2008) Nutritional control of reproductive status in honeybees via DNA methylation. Science 319:1827-1830

9. A trap to catch queen honey bees

One of the most time consuming tasks in beekeeping is finding the queen. We propose that it should be possible to make a trap to catch them. Virgin queens seek each other out and fight. They use pheromones to find each other. We propose to identify the pheromone to bait the trap with. This might result in a patentable device.

Techniques: Gas chromatography, bioassays

10. Identification of ‘African’ genes in imported stock including semen

There is ongoing demand for imported honey bee stock. Imported queens can be used as mothers of queens for export,thereby meeting international customer demand. Australian queen breeders are often desirous of obtaining stock from overseas to enhance their breeding lines.

Currently, it is not possible to certify that imported stock is free of 'African' genes, i.e. genotypes that originated with the subspecies Apis mellifera scutellata. A way to remedy this situation is to identify a suite of genetic markers that are unique to A. m. scutellata.

You would

• Develop a set of genetic markers such as Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) that can reliable identify bees with A. m. scutellata ancestry.
• Ensure that the markers can be used in semen as well as queens.
• Develop protocols acceptable to Biosecurity Australia that will allow identification of African genotypes in imported stock.

Whitfield CW, Behura SK, Berlocher SH, et al. (2006) Thrice out of Africa: Ancient and recent expansions of the honey bee, Apis mellifera. Science 314, 642-645.

11. Intragenomic conflict and the evolution of uniparental inheritance of cytoplasmic organelles

Most organisms reproduce sexually. During sexual reproduction, fusion occurs between two gametes - a large egg and a small sperm, or between gametes that are of the same size but of different mating types. In evolutionary terms, why are there usually two sexes or mating types, rather than just one, or three, or four? We do not really understand this most basic element of reproduction. One clue may come from the fact that in most sexually reproducing organisms, only one of the two mating partners is responsible for transferring the cytoplasmic organelles (mitochondria and chloroplasts), even when gametes are of the same size. Why? The conflict hypothesis posits that asymmetrical transfer of cytoplasm is an adaptation that prevents the mixing of cytoplasmic organelles of different origins in one individual. Modelling studies suggest that the combination of cytoplasmic organelles from two parents may generate within-individual competition among organelles, with detrimental effects on organismal fitness. As a result, the nuclear genome may have been selected to ensure uniparental inheritance of cytoplasm, thereby preventing the emergence of genetically selfish organelles.

This intriguing hypothesis about intragenomic conflict warrants experimental validation. This project will test the 'conflict hypothesis' by studying mitochondrial inheritance in the acellular slime mould Physarum polycephalum. In this exceptional species, mitochondrial transmission is established after zygote formation – and in some instances, mitochondria inherit biparentally.

In this project you will specifically study:

1. modes of transmission of mitochondria in acellular slime moulds;
2. the costs associated with biparental inheritance of mitochondria; and
3. the regulation of inheritance of mitochondria in slime moulds.

Reference: Cosmides, L.M. and J. Tooby, Cytoplasmic inheritance and intragenomic conflict. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 1981. 89: p. 83-129.