Learning to communicate: How do pheromones work in social and solitary bees and how did they evolve?

This project will combine behavioural ecology with molecular approaches to understand how mechanisms of communication work and how they evolved. This project will use solitary bees (e.g. the red mason bee Osmia bicornis) and social bees like honeybees and bumblebees to address this question.
Communication is not only central to the function of social bee colonies but also for mating and other intra-species communication in solitary bees. Using a combination of laboratory and field studies this project will also address whether these fundamental communications are disrupted by environmental influences, like climate change and pesticide exposures in solitary and social bees.
This project directly addresses a key question in evolutionary biology but also has practical importance. The honeybee is intensively managed for pollination of crops contributing £651 million to the British economy annually and is incredibly important for the security of our food supply. Understanding how to control pest species without harming beneficial insects, like pollinator species, is of paramount importance. Understanding more about how social insects and solitary bees function will assist with these goals. Ultimately it is hoped that this knowledge about the fundamental biology of these important insects will also help inform conservation efforts aimed at maintaining bee biodiversity in the UK and globally.