UNLV Home | UNLV Department of Biological Sciences
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UNLV Home | UNLV Department of Biological Sciences
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My lab uses the European honey bee, Apis mellifera as a model system to investigate control of behavior across multiple levels of analysis. The complexity of social interactions in the honey bee model system rivals that of even primate societies and due to the long association between humans and bees, colonies are easier to keep and manipulate. With the sequencing of the honey bee genome we can ask truly systems level questions combining genetic, molecular, endocrine, neural, developmental, behavioral, ecological and evolutionary levels of analysis.
I am interested in how an animal’s experience of the social and ecological environments interacts with its hormones, neuropeptides and regulatory proteins to contribute to the development, flexibility and function of naturally occurring social behaviors. I am also interested in how individual differences in behavior, hormone sensitivity and neural function develop, how they are maintained and what the outcomes are both in the proximate and evolutionary contexts. Because behavior is the animal’s first line of interaction with the environment and the outcome of the integration of multiple biological systems, a true understanding of behavior, its mechanisms and evolution, requires an interdisciplinary approach that synthesizes information from the molecular to the ecological.
Contact Information
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Send mail to
michelle.elekonich@ccmail.nevada.edu with
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