Taming the Coevolved Gut Bacterial Communities of Social Bees

Event Details

Type

Friday Lecture Series

Speaker(s)

Nancy Moran, Ph.D., Leslie Surginer Endowed Professor, department of integrative biology, University of Texas at Austin

Speaker bio(s)

Microbial communities residing in guts of animals are increasingly recognized as important for hosts. Humans, like other mammals, have highly complex gut microbiota, dominated by bacterial species that have not been cultured or manipulated in the laboratory. Like mammals, honey bees have a distinctive gut microbiota that is transmitted through social interactions of hosts, and located mostly in the distal gut where it can degrade plant-derived polymers from the diet. But the bee microbiota is dominated by only 8 bacterial species, and can be experimentally manipulated. Comparative genomics of gut bacteria from different bee hosts shows that the core gut community has evolved together with social bees for 80 million years and has diversified along with honey bees, bumble bees, and stingless bees. Strains show restriction to particular host species, and differ in abilities relevant to host ecology, such as use of different plant-derived substrates. Disrupting the gut microbiota or depriving bees of a gut microbiota has severely negative effects, partly due to metabolic shifts and partly due to increased susceptibility to pathogens. 

Dr. Moran is the Leslie Surginer Endowed Professor at the University of Texas in the Department of Integrative Biology. She received her B.A. in 1976 from the University of Texas and her Ph.D. (Zoology, 1982) from the University of Michigan, where she studied with Richard D. Alexander and William D. Hamilton. She previously served on the faculties of the University of Arizona and Yale University. She is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and received the 2010 International Prize for Biology from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. Moran studies genome evolution and the ecology, and genetics of symbiotic bacteria and insects, and has focused on bees and aphids.

Open to

Public

Host

Daniel Kronauer, Ph.D.

Reception

Refreshments, 3:15 p.m. - 3:45 p.m., Abby Lounge

Contact

Justin Sloboda

Phone

(212) 327-7785

Sponsor

Justin Sloboda
(212) 327-7785
jsloboda@rockefeller.edu

Readings

http://librarynews.rockefeller.edu/?p=4641