Determination of the Dissimilarity of a Highly Conserved Gene in a Hive of The European Honeybee (Apis mellifera)

Advisor Information

Karen Murch-Shafer

Location

UNO Criss Library, Room 112

Presentation Type

Oral Presentation

Start Date

6-3-2015 9:00 AM

End Date

6-3-2015 9:15 AM

Abstract

This purpose of this project is to better understand the dissimilarity of a highly conserved gene between bees living in the same hive. Apis mellifera, the common honey bee, has had a fairly constant population decline since the 1960s, dropping at a rate of about 17%-20% per year, until about 2007. Since then, numbers have been decreasing at alarming rates, leading to a loss of up to 30% yearly, to most drastic cases of 90% of entire colonies. The cause of this collapse is unknown, and is likely caused by a multitude of factors, including parasites, insecticides, habitat degradation, and air pollution. This project will be working with the genetic makeup of the honey bee, whose genome is globally seen as very valuable. The honey bee was set to a high-priority organism for genome sequencing because of its importance in understanding social patterns in nature and its massive impact on human’s agriculture. This research is important because this will help us determine how genetically similar or dissimilar female worker bees are, which has many implications, such as the bees’ susceptibility to various pathogens, pests, and other environmental stresses. My goal is to better understand how genetic information can be processed and analyzed, and this project provides the chance to produce new ways of thinking in the bioinformatics field, and ideally publish a paper relating to genetic dissimilarity. Because the importance of honey bees is so high, the more information we can gather on them, the better.

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Mar 6th, 9:00 AM Mar 6th, 9:15 AM

Determination of the Dissimilarity of a Highly Conserved Gene in a Hive of The European Honeybee (Apis mellifera)

UNO Criss Library, Room 112

This purpose of this project is to better understand the dissimilarity of a highly conserved gene between bees living in the same hive. Apis mellifera, the common honey bee, has had a fairly constant population decline since the 1960s, dropping at a rate of about 17%-20% per year, until about 2007. Since then, numbers have been decreasing at alarming rates, leading to a loss of up to 30% yearly, to most drastic cases of 90% of entire colonies. The cause of this collapse is unknown, and is likely caused by a multitude of factors, including parasites, insecticides, habitat degradation, and air pollution. This project will be working with the genetic makeup of the honey bee, whose genome is globally seen as very valuable. The honey bee was set to a high-priority organism for genome sequencing because of its importance in understanding social patterns in nature and its massive impact on human’s agriculture. This research is important because this will help us determine how genetically similar or dissimilar female worker bees are, which has many implications, such as the bees’ susceptibility to various pathogens, pests, and other environmental stresses. My goal is to better understand how genetic information can be processed and analyzed, and this project provides the chance to produce new ways of thinking in the bioinformatics field, and ideally publish a paper relating to genetic dissimilarity. Because the importance of honey bees is so high, the more information we can gather on them, the better.