Tugrul Giray - US grants

1043057

Abramson, Oklahoma State University

Summary of Proposal: The project for support of a U.S.-Turkey workshop: EuroBee 2010: International Symposium-workshop on Honey Bee Behavioral Plasticity-an Integrative Approach, Ankara, Turkey, September 2010. The organizers are Dr. Charles Abramson of Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma and Dr. Aykut Kence, Middle East Technical University (METU) in Ankara, Turkey. The meeting is to promote the creation of an international network of scientists involved in honey bee research. This will be the first international meeting to focus specifically on integrative study from the level of the nervous system to that of the ecosystem, and only the second international meeting on learning and memory of honey bees since the 1980s. The placement of the workshop at the end of the IVth Biennial European Honey Bee Conference at Ankara, Turkey September 7-9, 2010 will help minimize travel expenses and take advantage of the workshop to draw greater, particularly local participation, especially those interested in diversity in honey bee behavior. Turkey is a center of honey bee subspecific diversity (20% of world subspecies), and the workshop will include visits to sites where four of the five subspecies of honeybees in Turkey can be observed. In addition to the NSF support, several international participants have been able to secure partial or complete support for their attendance at the workshop.

Intellectual merit: This meeting will emphasize integration of approaches from neurobiology, development, ecology, and evolution, as well as different behavioral research traditions. There seem to be few examples of this integration due to lack of communication among researchers with various approaches, especially those in different countries. The proposed workshop will help to advance our understanding of (1) how animals with small brains are able to achieve a high level of cognitive sophistication, specifically complex learning and memory abilities and (2) how behavioral variation within and between different species of honey bees, an important model organism, is related to their evolutionary history and ecological adaptations. The PI is an expert in the field of honey bee learning and memory and has extensive experience with foreign collaborations. The meeting will foster collaborative research between scientists from the U.S., Europe and Turkey. The proposed topic for the research is very creative, interdisciplinary and will have a major impact upon the study of honey bees. The logistics of the meeting in Turkey have been well planned.

Broader impacts: The meeting will significantly enhance the study of honey bee biology, by focusing on an integrative approach to behavioral plasticity through physiological, ecological, and cellular mechanisms. The results will include the creation of an international network of scientists who are studying behavioral plasticity in a model system that features an animal, the honey bee, which has major significance to human life. The meeting will include the participation of graduate students, women, and others who are members of underrepresented groups. The results will be broadly disseminated through the publication of the proceedings in an edited volume and the preparation of a concept paper for Nature or Science. Both the PI and co-PI have a good record of publication in international, peer-reviewed journals, including the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA.

A major goal in the field of neuroscience is to understand how the brain evaluates its surroundings and implements a plan of action. Increasing our knowledge about decision-making could ultimately lead to improved strategies for solving problems in a more effective and adaptive fashion. This knowledge should also provide deep insight into certain behavioral and developmental disorders in which decision-making is compromised.

This PIRE project brings together of a consortium of U.S. and international faculty and students on four interdisciplinary subprojects that are unified by the goal of increasing our understanding of brain mechanisms mediating reward and decision processes. Each subproject will partner investigators and students from the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) and/or Oklahoma State University with a team of international researchers from Canada, Chile, Egypt, Italy, and/or Turkey. The Neural Mechanisms of Reward and Decision project will catalyze advances in research and education that could not occur without international collaboration. PIRE workshops and exchanges will cultivate interdisciplinary cooperation and identify common objectives among groups that investigate the role of dopamine in reward and decisions across a broad spectrum of phylogenetic and mechanistic levels. One subproject will study the impact of parasitic infection on neuromodulatory systems that regulate host behavior in a snail-schistosome system using transcriptomics and electrophysiological techniques. A second subproject will examine how isolation stress during adolescence differentially affects male and female dopamine circuitry and resultant learning, memory and behavior in rats. A third subproject will study the role of dopamine on plasticity of foraging behavior in different honeybee subspecies. The fourth subproject will examine the biophysical consequences of repeated exposure to stimulants on the activity of dopamine neurons. The PIRE project will make continuous efforts to integrate across the four subprojects to achieve a broad understanding of neural mechanisms of reward and decision processes.

Student participants in the Neural Mechanisms of Reward and Decision project will conduct research in the labs of international partners as well as in U.S. labs; they will receive mentoring to develop their critical thinking proficiency and enhance their communication skills and professionalism. All mentors possess considerable experience with international collaboration and cooperation which will be shared and disseminated for the benefit of the entire program. This program also responds to the national need to increase diversity in the scientific workforce. The University of Puerto Rico has historically served as a rich source of talented students who pursue graduate degrees in institutions on the island and elsewhere. This program will enhance our ability to provide students with international research experiences that promote their global engagement. A great beneficiary of broadened global participation in the field of neuroscience will be the field itself.

Honey bees exhibit highly complex behavior and are vital for our agriculture. Due to the rich social organization of bees, the overall performance and health of a bee colony depends both on a successful division of labor among the bees and on adequate reaction to the environment, which involves complex behavioral patterns and biological mechanisms. Much remains to be discovered on these matters as research is currently limited by our ability to effectively collect and analyze individual's behavior at large scale, out of the laboratory. The technology developed in this project will enable biologists to study the individual behavior of thousands of bees over extended periods of time. It builds on innovative algorithms and software to analyze big data collected from colonies in the field. Study of behavioral patterns at such scale will provide unique information to advance knowledge on biological processes such as circadian rhythms that influence bee behavior in addition to playing an important role in animals and humans. The models developed will help better understand factors involved in colony collapse disorder, thus guiding future research on threats to such an important pollinator. This work will be performed through the tight collaboration of a multi-disciplinary team of researchers to combine the latest advances in computer science and data science with expertise in biology. It will provide the opportunity to train students from underrepresented minority on research at the intersection of these fields and to reach more than 600 undergraduate students, high school students, and the general public about how the Big Data approach can contribute to current scientific and ecological challenges.

The project will develop a platform for the high-throughput analysis of individual insect behaviors and gain new insights into the role of individual variations of behavior on bee colony performance. Joint video and sensor data acquisition will monitor marked individuals at multiple colonies over large continuous periods, generating the first datasets of bee activities of this kind on such a scale. Algorithms and software will be developed to take advantage of a High Performance Computing facility to perform the analysis of these massive datasets. Semi-supervised machine learning will leverage the large amount of data available to facilitate the creation of new detectors for parameters such as pollen carrying bees or fanning behavior, currently annotated manually. Predictive models and functional data analysis methods will be developed to find patterns in individual behavior based on multiple parameters and over large temporal scales. These advances are expected to help uncover mechanisms of individual variations previously unobservable. They will enable the first large scale biological study on the circadian rhythms of the bee based on the variations in behavior of individuals in multiple activities instead of reasoning on single activities or averages. Progress, datasets and software will be shared with the community on the project website (sites.google.com/a/upr.edu/bigdbee).

The Centers of Research Excellence in Science and Technology (CREST) program supports the enhancement of research capabilities of minority-serving institutions through the establishment of centers that effectively integrate education and research. CREST promotes the development of new knowledge, enhancements of the research productivity of individual faculty, and an expanded presence of students historically underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines.

With National Science Foundation support, the University of Puerto Rico Medical Sciences Campus will continue development of its Phase II Center for Environmental Neuroscience. The Phase I Center for Environmental Neuroscience was established to bring together scientists from the traditionally separate fields of neuroscience and environmental science, recognizing the fact that the nervous system serves as the interface between an organism and its environment. Phase II Center investigators and students will explore the impact of anthropogenic environmental degradation on nervous systems at the structural, physiological and behavioral levels.

Responses of nervous systems to environmental degradation will be examined in three subprojects partitioned according to tropical habitats: 1) Marine and Estuaries, 2)Rivers and Freshwater, and 3) Terrestrial. Three objectives that encompass the subprojects will identify nervous system responses that will improve risk prediction or development of resilience strategies to diverse environmental stressors. These specific aims will 1) assess effects of environmental contaminants on nervous system structure and function, 2) determine impacts of climatic variation (acidification, temperature changes) on the molecular and cell biology of neurons, and 3) investigate the impact of anthropogenic stimuli (light, sound) on sensory systems and behavior.

Center educational and career development activities include a newly created course in Environmental Neuroscience, a Seminar Series, a Responsible Conduct in Research module, and the Yale Ciencia Academy for Career Development, a year-long on-line program that provides graduate students underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines with opportunities for mentoring, peer support and networking. Institutional partnerships will also provide Center students and faculty with access to training and research programs at institutions of cutting-edge investigation in neurobiology and environmental science.

Honey bees are among the most successful invasive organisms worldwide, both on and off islands. They play a key role as pollinators in agricultural systems worldwide, but are also threatened by human activities. This award supports the first conference to examine one strain of non-native honey bee, the Puerto Rico Gentle Africanized honey bee, through the lens of invasion biology and island biogeography. The conference is timely for two reasons. First, the introduction and radiation of invasive organisms, and threats to honey bee health, continue unabated. Second, invasive organisms - and honey bees in particular - have a critical impact on global food security. In this conference, researchers will communicate new findings that aim to stimulate their research and that of their students and interact directly with stakeholders who can apply basic research findings to improve management decisions. The new research directions and improved management decisions are expected to translate into economic benefits for a much-challenged Puerto Rico island economy. Additionally, because the invited participants include a diverse set of student participants from the University of Puerto Rico, this conference has the potential to broaden participation in STEM.

The amount and type of data available for honey bees, including the Puerto Rico Gentle Africanized honey bee, are unparalleled. However, bee researchers do not use an invasive biology perspective, and invasive biology studies typically do not examine the honey bee as a model. The adaptation of Africanized honey bees to the island of Puerto Rico is an example of the changes that can occur to invasive organisms and their ecosystem during island colonization. The invasion process impacts the invading as well as the resident species and the ecosystem in which they navigate. One of the advantages of studying island populations is that such adaptive processes are accelerated. Moreover, adaptive processes may show similar patterns across species and as such, data from island populations can be particularly useful to develop and test models of invasion biology. This three-day conference will develop an integrative analysis approach to honey bee invasions using various types of data generated by different research areas and approaches to invasion biology. These include genomics, morphology, behavior and ecology. On the first day, all participants will give presentations. For the second day, attendees will visit field sites to observe the honey bee population established on the island of Puerto Rico. On the third day, attendees will form breakout groups for round table discussions leading to a strategic plan on research directions, resources, and policy advice on bees and other invasive organisms on islands.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

Large and unpredictable stressors like new diseases are impacting practically all species with increasing frequency and strength. Understanding how species respond often relies on studies of genetics. Islands are a good place to study such responses because a large fraction of resident species are usually impacted. The COVID pandemic has disrupted the ability of many students – especially those from underrepresented groups -- to get the training and mentoring they need to study genetic responses to stressors. This workshop will help fix that problem by providing students from Puerto Rico and southern Florida with cutting edge skills for analyzing and interpreting genetic data that they may find challenging.

The workshop will help ensure the continued academic progress of participants from STEM underrepresented communities by engaging them in research activities that can be undertaken when most laboratory and fieldwork is limited. Workshop participants will acquire skills to analyze gene expression data from their independent research projects on response of organisms across the span of biological diversity to biotic and abiotic stressors. A high degree of “hands-on” virtual interaction between participants and instructors will be used as a platform. This will be followed with email and chat group communications and coupled with posted recorded sessions and associated supporting instructional materials. Results are likely to yield new insights about how organisms adapt to new environmental challenges.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

This symposium focuses on biological clocks and social behavior in social insects and takes place at the 2022 International Union for the Study of Social Insects (IUSSI), in San Diego, California. Invited presenters will bring together information on distinct technologies and insights as related to biological clocks and how they interact with social behavior. This symposium, and IUSSI, presents a unique opportunity to bring researchers together to facilitate synergy, professional development, future research collaborations, and a better understanding of the economically important social insects. Presenters represent a broad range of career stages and fields and there is strong participation of individuals from groups traditionally underrepresented in STEM fields. Undergraduate students will also attend the IUSSI providing a valuable early career experience. <br/><br/>Biological clocks organize aspects of life at different levels of biological organization. Participants in this symposium and the focused meetings around this symposium will help form a deeper understanding of social insects, social behavior, and biological clocks potentially leading to new frontiers of research and understanding. Also, of interest and focus here is seasonal timing of behavior and how the adaptive nature of seasonal behaviors could be impacted by climate changes. Planned publications will share the synergistic outcomes of the symposium.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.