Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biological Informatics for FY-2000

Whitfield, Charles W, Atherton CA

Investigators

Abstract

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biological Informatics for 2000. The research and training plan is in the area of Behavioral Neuroscience and is entitled "Analysis of Global Gene Expression in the Social and Genetic Determination of Behavioral Diversity in the Bee Colony." Division of labor in the honey bee colony (Apis mellifera) is dependent on variation in the behavior of the colony's individual workers. Worker behavior varies as a function of an individual worker's age, interactions with other colony members, social environment, and inherited genetic factors. To address the relationship between genes and behavior, this research uses DNA microarrays to test whether variation in gene expression in the brain is a mechanism that underlies behavioral diversity in the honey bee colony.