Kaleigh and Mari are authors of the recently published review article, ‘Are societies resilient? Challenges faced by social insects in a changing world’.

 

 

 

 

IS: Who are you and what do you do?

KF: I am a graduate student in the Woodard lab at the University of California, Riverside. I am using methods from insect behaviour, evolution, and sensory ecology to understand how taste operates in bumble bees.

MW: I am a 3rd-year graduate student in the Purcell Lab in the Entomology Department at the University of California, Riverside. I study non-reproductive division of labor in ants, with the goal of understanding how continuous size variation and differences in chemical cues among workers affect how tasks are partitioned in social insect colonies.

 

 

IS: How did you develop an interest in your research?

KF: I was interested in agroecology and started working in a lab that studies insects in shade coffee farms in Mexico. I became interested in the ants and the stingless bees in this system. The research was super exciting; it was my first introduction to social insects, and I have been working with them ever since.

MW: I first became interested in social insects as an undergraduate at Cornell University, where I worked in Dr. Linda Rayor’s lab, studying behavioral dynamics between reproductive females in social spider colonies. These spiders are usually very tolerant of each other but can become quite aggressive (to the point of being cannibalistic) when vying for reproductive opportunity. Later, while working with an invasive ant species that is highly polygyne and super-colonial, I realized that there was a vast spectrum of cooperative behaviors within social groups. Since this realization, I have been interested in how social insects can coordinate these collective behaviors without any central control.

IS: What is your favorite social insect and why?

KF: My favorite social insects are the stingless bees. They are so interesting both biologically (eusocial, ~500 species) and culturally (long history of stingless beekeeping in Mexico). I worked with them briefly before starting to work with bumblebees and hope to have the opportunity to work with them in the future.

MW: Why do I have to have a favorite? They’re all awesome in their own ways.

IS: What is the best moment/discovery in your research so far? What made it so memorable?

KF: I think the best moment in my research so far happened a few weeks into my first field season on a shade coffee farm in Mexico for my master’s research. I stopped and thought, “wow this is awesome, I can’t believe this is my job!” It’s easy to get overwhelmed by all of the components involved with being in academia; I think it’s important to remind myself from time to time how exciting it is to ask a question about why or how insects are doing something, especially in the field, and then figure out a way to answer it. I realized how awesome that is in this moment. 

MW: Before I started my graduate work, I volunteered for a research project with the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s Crazy Ant Strike Team, whose goal is to eradicate the invasive yellow crazy ant from a Pacific island. The island serves as important nesting habitat for ground-nesting seabirds, which the ants significantly disrupt. My crew’s goal was to test a few different control/eradication strategies so that the next team could implement the most effective one. The project has been very successful, leading to almost complete eradication of the ants and a significant recovery in seabird reproduction on this island! It feels incredible to have been involved in a conservation project that has made a positive and lasting impact!

IS: Do you teach or do outreach/science communication? How do you incorporate your research into these areas?

KF: Yes, to both; I enjoy teaching (I have only had the opportunity to be a teaching assistant so far) and doing outreach. Depending on what I am teaching, I try to use relevant examples from social insects, especially bumblebees. I also really enjoy outreach. Depending on the group, I will introduce my specific research and why I do it or discuss the importance of pollinators and insects in general.

MW: Both as an undergraduate and graduate student researcher, I have been lucky to be part of entomology departments with strong focuses on outreach and I have been involved in many large-scale insect fairs throughout my academic career. Additionally, I have made it into many K-12 classrooms through these programs. I always try to incorporate my research into outreach events by introducing the basics of the colonial lifestyle and cooperative behavior of social insects. For more advanced audiences, I will also explain my experimental designs and findings.

IS: What do you think are some of the important current questions in social insect research and what’s essential for future research?

KF: A question that I am interested in is how environmental context shapes social behaviour. A lot of super informative research about insect sociality has come out of laboratory studies. I think building on those findings to capture how variable they are across different populations and species is essential.

MW: If you read our paper, Fisher & West et al. 2018, then you already know. 🙂

IS: What research questions generate the biggest debate in social insect research at the moment?

MW: My general feeling is that a lot of debate surrounds honeybees – whether or not they are good/necessary for ecosystem functioning and whether their long history of being farmed makes them a useful model system for studying social insects.

IS: What is the last book you read? Would you recommend it? Why or why not?

KF: The last book I read was the Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy. It is fiction, but it has powerful social and political commentaries about current events in India and globally. I enjoyed it, so I would recommend it to those who enjoy novels with strong social commentaries.

MW: The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair. It’s certainly not very upbeat, but I do think it is relevant to some social and economic issues that our world faces today.  It was a thought-provoking read.

 

 

IS: Outside of science, what are your favourite activities, hobbies or sports?

KF: Outside of science, I like to spend time with my family (hiking, gardening, cooking together).

MW: Hiking and baking. I like exploring the outdoors, mainly to observe wild animals in their natural environment, and working with my hands to make something tasty to share with others.

IS: How do you keep going when things get tough?

KF: Whenever I feel overwhelmed, I try to step away from everything for a moment, even if that means just going for a walk, so that I can get a better perspective on everything.

MW: I usually remind myself how lucky I am that my job brings me outdoors on a regular basis and keeps me intellectually engaged. I try to give myself some time to relax outside, to reflect and refresh my outlook on life.

IS: If you were to go live on an uninhabited island and could only bring three things, what would you bring? Why?

KF: I would bring my partner because he is an expert field biologist and awesome human, and a notebook and a pen (to help organize my thoughts/ideas).

MW: Having previously lived on an uninhabited island to which I was able to bring pretty much everything I ever wanted, this is a tough question to answer. However, if I had to choose, I would bring a snorkel for exploring the coral reefs (and maybe making fishing a little easier), some sunblock, and someone with whom to share the experience. In my experience, you don’t need much more.

IS: Who do you think has had the most considerable influence on your science career?

KF: I think my master’s thesis advisors have had the most significant influence on my scientific career. They have inspired me to be inherently curious about insects while simultaneously instilling in me the importance of doing science consciously and with a moral compass.

MW: Without Dr. Linda Rayor’s influence, I probably wouldn’t be studying social insects today. She was an incredible mentor, and her enthusiasm for and ability to communicate about her science caught my attention immediately. In addition to getting me interested in social insect behavior, she has inspired me to share my science with others around me.

 

 

 

 

IS: What advice would you give to a young person hoping to be a social insect researcher in the future?

KF: Give yourself time to explore what kind of research you are passionate about. Being excited about the questions you are asking and the research you are doing is what it is all about.

MW: I would encourage them to spend some time working on different projects so that they can identify the questions that they are most excited about and learn about what kinds of experimental design work well for those questions. I would also encourage them to spend many hours watching their study organisms, for fun and inspiration.

IS: Who are you and what do you do?

TS: My name is Thiago Silva, and I am a researcher at the Universidade Federal do Paraná, Brazil. During my Msc. I studied the diversity of two genera of myrmicine ants (Acanthognathus and Strumigenys) in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. My Ph.D. thesis stretched a bit to the morphological side, and I explored some aspects of the anatomy of several species of Strumigenys using web-based tools to annotate classes in online anatomic ontologies.

IS: How did you develop an interest in your research?

TS: As an undergraduate student, I became obsessed with insects, mostly wasps and grasshoppers. At the time, my supervisor (who is an ornithologist) was studying the edaphic fauna of one of the few national parks we have at the southern region of the Atlantic Forest. Knowing of my interest in insects, he invited me to study the ant fauna he collected at the site. With some reluctance (I really loved wasps) I accepted the challenge. When I laid eyes on my first mounted ant under the stereoscope, it was love at first sight.

IS: What is your favorite social insect and why?

TS: I love minute and shy social insects like Strumigenys inusitata. It is a bizarre-looking ant with a flattened head and a distinct hump over its mandibles (see image below). We do not know what the function of this structure is, but since most species belonging to this genus are slow-paced hunters living at the leaf-litter, we guess it might be related to a prey attraction strategy.

 

 

IS: What is the best moment/discovery in your research so far? What made it so memorable?

TS: I do not remember any specific great discoveries during my research. I think that seemingly-small everyday discoveries, such as learning a little bit about the morphology of a cool group, are the most memorable moments to me.

IS: Do you teach or do outreach/science communication? How do you incorporate your research into these areas?

TS: I often talk about science and biology to undergraduate and graduate colleagues, whether in more casual settings at the university or during courses. I always try to highlight the importance of morphology to other disciplines in biology and how the study of phenotypes provides all sort of hints that enables us to understand a lot about biological systems.

Recently, I started talking more about representation of knowledge and the importance of clear communication in science. It is a somewhat new topic for me, so I am gradually incorporating these ideas in my talks.

IS: What do you think are some of the important current questions in social insect research and what’s essential for future research?

TS: Since social insects are extremely complex, I think there are numerous important questions that have to be (and are being) addressed. I believe that the most essential one is how sociality came to be in different groups of insects. Although its partial understanding does not impede the exploration of other important aspects related to sociality, I think the complete understanding of the origin of sociality is a primary topic of research for social insect scientists worldwide.

IS: What research questions generate the biggest debate in social insect research at the moment?

TS: Terminology always strikes me as the hot topic in my field of research and I think I always focus on it when reading about social insects.

IS: What is the last book you read? Would you recommend it? Why or why not?

TS: The last non-fiction book I read was Bruno Latour’s We Have Never Been Modern. It is a fascinating book and I recommend it, especially in the current social and political global context. The book deals with the modern duality of culture and nature and how this polarity affects decision-making at different levels within modern society.

The last fiction books I read were Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore and the graphic novel Black Dog: The Dreams of Paul Nash by Dave McKean. I would recommend any of the Murakami’s books, but Kafka is a favorite of mine since the characters depart from the typical constructs the author used in his previous works. Also, I love Murakami’s magical realism and references to popular culture. Black Dog is a must-read for those who want to take a glimpse at the nightmarish effects of war and understand how the first world war affected (and still affects) people at local and global scales. The mixed painting styles used by McKean and how their interplay with the narrative makes the reading extremely joyous.

IS: Outside of science, what are your favorite activities, hobbies or sports?

TS: I spend most of my time outside of academic grounds reading or writing. I also like to get on the road and travel to other places. Sometimes one’s own mind is the best hobby one can have.

IS: How do you keep going when things get tough?

TS: I write my concerns away. I discovered that it is a useful sort of therapy for me. It organizes my thoughts, clearing the path that leads to the most unstressful resolution of a problem.

IS: If you were to go live on an uninhabited island and could only bring three things, what would you bring? Why?

TS: Paper, pencil and the opportunity to leave the island! As Donne said, ‘every man is a piece of the continent’. Although I am very fond of reclusion from time to time, it is nice to be with kin.

IS: Who do you think has had the most considerable influence on your science career?

TS: My parents and brother. My mother is a former researcher in obstetrics and always studied postpartum wellness and scientific methodology. My brother is an archaeologist/anthropologist and has always been concerned with the relation of public patrimony (especially archaeological sites) and traditional communities. My father is not a researcher, but always shared with me the delights of investigation and discovery. I think that a person’s major influences are those that are closest to them, providing support and teachings wherever they go.

IS: What advice would you give to a young person hoping to be a social insect researcher in the future?

TS: Love what you do, try new things, and don’t be afraid to make mistakes.

 

 

IS: Who are you and what do you do?

JW: My name is Joel Shutt Woon, and I have just started a Ph.D. at the University of Liverpool, where I plan to research climatic tolerances of termite communities in Western Africa. However, as with all research projects, the fine details could change! Before this, I studied at Imperial College London for both my BSc in Zoology and MRes in Tropical Forest Ecology.

 

 

IS: How did you develop an interest in your research?

JW: I was lucky enough to grow up between two large parks in Sheffield, UK, which gave the perfect opportunity to immerse myself in nature. I’d spend hours exploring the forests, searching for insects and amphibians, or following bird calls to try to catch a glimpse of the culprit. This experience growing up developed into a love for the natural world and made my course choice at university very simple. At university, through my BSc and MRes, I found that tropical rainforests were the habitat that enticed me the most. The ability to study your passion in some of the most incredible environments in the world is extraordinary and something that I hope to do for a very long time. I have also discovered, mainly through the course of my MRes work, that I am captivated by entomology, and specifically termites. Their importance as ecosystem engineers, nutrient cyclers, pests, and a food source makes them fascinating to study, and to top it off I think they look charming, although I accept I might be alone in that.

 

 

IS: What is your favorite social insect and why?

JW: There are so many cool termites to choose! Globitermes globosus has a remarkable defensive strategy that involves biting an attacker, locking its jaw, and then secreting a sticky liquid out of its head. This causes the termite to ‘glue’ itself to the attacker (usually a pesky ant), immobilising it and giving time for other soldiers to arrive and workers to repair the nest. Hospitalitermes march through rainforests in groups, similar to army ants, and you can see where they’ve been after they’ve disappeared because all the wood in their path will have been cleared of microepiphytes, leaving a clean trail. Moreover, you have to admire the savannah species of Macrotermesfor the complex and massive nest structures they manage to build.

 

 

Away from termites, Camponotus gigas (giant forest ants) are exciting to see around the forest; true gentle giants of the insect world! The size of them blew my mind when I first saw them. I also saw one infected with a cordyceps fungus – seeing a fungus growing out of a giant ant was like witnessing science fiction come to life!

 

 

IS: What is the best moment/discovery in your research so far? What made it so memorable?

JW: I’m still in the fledgling stages of my research career, so I haven’t had many “discoveries”, but finishing my first thermal tolerance experiment was an exciting moment. My supervisor had carried out the same tests on ants, so we started with low expectations of termite thermal tolerance and those expectations were exceeded! Also, walking out into the field to work on my own project for the first time was a huge moment for me. It was the realisation of a goal and a lot of hard work!

IS: Do you teach or do outreach/science communication? How do you incorporate your research into these areas?

JW: I don’t currently do outreach, as I am in the opening week of my Ph.D. as I write this, however, it is something that I want to develop. One of the biggest challenges we face as scientists is communicating our research to a broader audience. We can affect much more significant change if we communicate well than if we keep our work isolated within the scientific community. I think it is an area of science that needs a lot of improvement, and I want to contribute to that improvement.

 

 

IS: What do you think are some of the important current questions in social insect research and what’s essential for future research?

JW: We need to further our understanding of how climate change will impact social insects and increase the power and accuracy of these predictions. Social insects are incredibly important to a myriad of ecosystems, in a plethora of different ways, so understanding how a changing climate will impact their roles within those ecosystems is essential. Will climate change cause species distributions to change? If social insect species are displaced from ecosystems, is there redundancy to cover the lost ecosystem services? How will social insects impact the ecosystems to which they get displaced? These questions remain important.

 

 

IS: What research questions generate the biggest debate in social insect research at the moment?

JW: Quantifying and understanding the ecosystem services social insects provide is still a huge topic. Because many species of social insects are massively abundant, they can make huge impacts on ecosystems worldwide. Quantifying those impacts, and what happens to those ecosystems when social insects are excluded, is extremely important. It not only allows us to understand the relative importance of species, but also apply ecological and monetary values to them (regarding ecosystem services and damage caused), which is extremely useful in our modern world.

IS: What is the last book you read? Would you recommend it? Why or why not?

JW: I just finished the Conclave of Shadows saga by Raymond E. Feist, which is the fourth saga set in the fictional world of Midkemia. I would recommend reading Feist’s first book, The Magician, to all fans of fantasy, as it is an excellent and archetypal mythical story that many modern classics borrow from. I’m also reading The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben, which is a fascinating popular science book for people like me who haven’t had much experience in dendrology.

IS: Outside of science, what are your favourite activities, hobbies or sports?

JW: My main passion, aside from research, is travelling. I love immersing myself in new cultures, having new experiences, and seeing new environments. Through travelling, I’ve been lucky enough to visit some of the most amazing areas for marine life in the world, which has fostered a passion for scuba diving. Scuba diving is a very surreal and exhilarating experience and one I would recommend everyone try at least once. There is nothing else like it. When I’m back in the UK, my main hobby is playing a card game called Magic: The Gathering. It’s incredibly exciting and complex (it holds the world record for the game with most rules!) and has so much variation while challenging the player to think and strategise well.

IS: How do you keep going when things get tough?

JW: I think it’s essential to have a dependable support network for you to fall back on. Whether that’s scientific support or emotional support, having people who you can talk to openly and honestly and rely on for help allows you to work through all sorts of issues. I also think you need to have a hobby that you can step away to. Whether it’s for an hour, a day, or a week, you need something that is unrelated to research that you can occupy yourself with, and that will allow you to diffuse any negativity towards your work.

IS: If you were to go live on an uninhabited island and could only bring three things, what would you bring? Why?

JW: I would take an e-reader filled with books (including multiple on how to survive in the wild), a solar charger, and a satellite phone to ring for help when something inevitably goes wrong.

IS: Who do you think has had the most considerable influence on your science career?

JW: As with many biologists of my generation, the person who started me down the path I’m on is Sir David Attenborough. His documentaries opened my eyes to the incredible diversity and majesty of nature and made me want to pursue a career studying it. In a more practical sense, Mike Boyle, my friend and MRes supervisor, has also contributed massively to my development as a scientist, providing invaluable support, advice, and training as well as a healthy dose of realism.

IS: What advice would you give to a young person hoping to be a social insect researcher in the future?

JW: Be inquisitive and ask questions, and follow what you find interesting. Scour the internet/ library, go bug hunting in a garden, or contact experts! Most scientists love to share their research; whether you’re a grade school student or undergraduate, an amateur or a professional – if you reach out to people in your community, it is incredibly likely that you will get a response and tap into a source of knowledge that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to access. So send an email or two, ask a few questions, and see where it takes you!

A blog post highlighting the article by N. Wilson-Rich, R. E. Bonoan, E. Taylor, L. Lwanga, and P. T. Starks in Insectes Sociaux

By Rachael E. Bonoan and Philip T. Starks

Nature can be hostile, especially for insects — tiny creatures that deal with big problems. They get eaten, they dry out, they get smashed. Believe it or not, insects also deal with even tinier pests and pathogens, just as we do.

Also, like us, insects have developed an immune system to combat such microscopic threats. Over the years, scientists have uncovered how insect immunity relates to behavior, mating success, ability to find food, nutrition, energy cost, etc. However, the method used to study insect immunity — sterile fishing line inserted through the membrane between the sclerites — does not reflect the evolutionary history of insects and their pathogens. In our recent paper, we describe a modified method to investigate insect immune strength and its specificity. We show that the insect immune system may be able to recognize different classes of pathogens and respond accordingly.

An insect’s first line of defense is a physical barrier: the exoskeleton. When the exoskeleton is injured, however, diverse pathogens can invade. Once a pathogen makes it past this barrier, the insect immune system uses proteins called pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) to recognize cellular patterns on the invader (pathogen-associated molecular patterns, PAMPs). One of the many responses the immune system can then carry out is the encapsulation response (ER) where the invader is surrounded by immune cells which secrete a protein, melanin, that detoxifies the invader.

The strength of insect ER is typically measured by inserting a piece of sterile fishing line into the insect, waiting for the immune system to respond, and then removing the fishing line “invader.” Researchers then use light microscopy to measure how much melanin (i.e., color) developed on the fishing line. The darker the explanted fishing line, the more melanin deposited, and thus, the stronger the immune response. While the fishing line does mimic a physical injury, it does not mimic the diverse pathogens with which insects have evolved.

To make this method more evolutionarily relevant, we added a layer to the typical method: PAMPs. Different pathogens have different patterns (PAMPs) on their surface that the host PRRs recognize. We tested honey bee ER in response to fishing line coated in PAMPs found on two types of bacteria and fungi. We call our modified fishing line implants PAMPlants.

Once we coated the PAMPlants, we carefully inserted them between two segments of the honey bee exoskeleton. This is truly a labor of love. Handling the coated fishing line (2mm long, 0.4mm diameter—tiny!) with forceps takes steady hands and attention to detail. Thankfully, two NSF Research Experience for Undergraduate fellows were around to help carry out this mini-surgery on the 176 bees it took for this study! To let ER happen, we left both uncoated implants and coated PAMPlants in the honey bee for 4 hours. We then carefully removed all implants, and prepared a microscope slide with the explant. Microscopy was used to take images of the explant. We analyzed the images for color (i.e., melanin) as the typical proxy for ER strength.

Compared with a control implant (fishing line coated in phosphate-buffered saline), honey bees had a stronger ER to PAMPlants. In honey bees implanted with both a control implant and a PAMPlant, fungal PAMPlants and one of the bacterial PAMPlants (lipopolysaccharide) lead to a stronger ER than the control implant.

With this modified method, we show variation in honey bee immunity in response to different classes of pathogens. Since we saw an increase in ER for fungal and one of the bacterial PAMPlants, it is likely that physiological immunity is important for fighting these types of pathogens in honey bees. We did not see similar results for our third PAMPlant (peptidoglycan) which is found on some bacteria. In agreement with our results, honey bees likely combat this specific type of bacterial infection behaviorally rather than physiologically (Spivak and Reuter 2001).

When it comes to dealing with pests and pathogens, honey bees have it especially hard. In keeping bees, humans have unwittingly facilitated the spread of honey bee disease. In commercially raising bees, we have increased the density of honey bees across the landscape, and in some cases, we nurse weak colonies which are more likely to spread such disease.

The most notorious honey bee pest is the Varroa mite. This mite is the honey bee’s version of a tick. Ticks spread diseases in humans by puncturing our protective barrier (i.e., skin) and feeding on our blood. Varroa mites spread disease by injuring the honey bee’s physical barrier and feeding on the bee’s fat body—an essential organ for energy storage and immunity (Burnham 2018; Kielmanowicz et al. 2015).

Our modified method suggests that uncoated implants (i.e., fishing line) may not give insect immunity enough credit. While we have learned a lot about insect immunity with uncoated fishing line, we have so much more to uncover with PAMPlants!

References

Burnham T (2018) Downtown new hope in the fight against Varroa. Bee Culture, A.I. Root Company, Medina, OH, USA

Kielmanowicz MG et al. (2015) Prospective large-scale field study generates predictive model identifying major contributors to colony losses PLoS Pathog 11:e1004816 doi:10.1371/journal.ppat.1004816

Spivak M, Reuter GS (2001) Resistance to American foulbrood disease by honey bee colonies Apis mellifera bred for hygienic behavior Apidologie 32:555-565