NU Ideas Season 3 | No.2

Monday 11th November | 6pm

Does invasive alien plant Himalayan Balsam attract honeybees for nectar and how do forage activities influence honeybee gut bacteria and the honey composition?

Vartul Sangal

Assistant Professor, Applied Sciences

Northumbria University

Honeybees are extremely important to our economy as a pollinator of crops and wild plants, and as a producer of honey and wax with an estimated contribution in billions of dollars per year. Himalayan Balsam, introduced in Europe and UK in 1939 as a garden ornamental plant, has become a major invasive species.

Invasive plants are reported to outcompete native species in attracting pollinators which results in reduction of native plant diversity. Our study revealed that honeybees forage on diverse plants and do not specifically favour Himalayan Balsam over native species. Foraging on different plants influence the microbial composition in honeybee guts but the core gut bacteria are quite stable, which is important for maintaining the bee health. Interestingly, we identified few new bacterial species that are capable of producing novel biomolecules including potential antibiotics. Forage activities also affect the composition of honey, especially the presence or absence of compounds of pharmacological significance. Traces of some insecticides, herbicides and pesticides were detected among few honey samples from sites surrounded by agricultural land that are toxic to honeybees.

Therefore, the forage on different plant species and local agricultural practices influence the bee gut microbiome and the quality of honey.

What can non-eusocial insects teach us about social behaviours?

Clara Howcroft Ferreira

Assistant Professor in Neuroscience

Applied Sciences, Northumbria University

Social behaviours can be broadly defined as activities an individual engages in while interacting with other individuals. This very broad definition encompasses a variety of behaviours from dyadic aggressive or reproductive interactions to complex group dynamics such as schooling or swarming, and may involve organisms of the same or different species.

When we think about social behaviours we typically think of our own society or flocking vertebrates, but eusocial invertebrates such as bees and ants also come to mind. In this talk I will rather tell about what we have learnt of the neural basis of social behaviour from the unlikely neuroscience star, the vinegar fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. These flies, which commonly be found aggregated on our ‘matured’ fruits, display a variety of interesting social behaviours. Importantly, as they are genetically well defined, have a relatively simple nervous system and are easy to manipulate, they permit detailed behavioural descriptions using sophisticated behavioural assays and identifying which neurons and molecules are involved in the production of these behaviours.

Studying the neurobiological basis of conserved social behaviours in flies therefore promises to uncover common principles across the animal kingdom.