My long-term goal is to understand the relation between aging and social evolution at the genomic, organismal, and biodemographic level. I use the comparative honey bee model that offers many experimental opportunities to study epigenetic influences on aging in a highly social context under natural conditions. These studies can yield new insights of general relevance into aging processes and generate novel hypotheses or concepts to stimulate human aging studies. Based on our previous demographic studies and findings that honey bees senescence is more influenced by social status and behavior than by chronological age, I propose to study the plastic aging patterns in honey bee workers further to address the questions how early life stressors, adult behavior, and social interventions determine individual life history trajectories. The predicted influences will be furter studied in surveys of the bees'transcriptome and methylome to elucidate genomic signatures of the exceptional aging plasticity of honey bees. The proposal has the following specific aims: 1) Identification of early developmental and behavioral influences on aging: The effect of parasite stress during development on mortality patterns will be studied with adult behavior as covariate. 2) Description of gene expression patterns and epigenetic mechanisms that underlie the social regulation of aging plasticity: Transcriptome and methylome profiles in specific tissues will be compared at three time points between stressed and unstressed individuals that experience normal aging or experimental aging reversal. All experiments will be conducted in large cohorts of individually identifiable workers housed in observation hives to enable demographic analyses. Motivated by previous studies, recent methodological advances and the growing need for a comprehensive understanding of aging, this proposal is timely and innovative. It addresses fundamental gerontological questions in a uniquely-suited model system. It will provide novel insights that illuminate the social dimension of aging in an experimental biological system to generate new hypotheses for future research. The funding would allow me to expand my dedication to mentoring student research and fostering the next generation of biomedical scientists.

Public Health Relevance

The increasingly aging human population makes a comprehensive understanding of the biological patterns and processes of aging a necessity for policy making and medical practice alike. The honey bee is particularly well suited to experimentally study the effects of behavior and social factors on aging, which is the focus of this proposal. Yielding insights into general principles and generating hypotheses to stimulate studies on humans, the proposed research activities will significantly benefit human health.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute on Aging (NIA)
Type
Exploratory/Developmental Grants (R21)
Project #
5R21AG046837-02
Application #
8741924
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZRG1)
Program Officer
King, Jonathan W
Project Start
2013-09-30
Project End
2015-06-30
Budget Start
2014-07-01
Budget End
2015-06-30
Support Year
2
Fiscal Year
2014
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
University of North Carolina Greensboro
Department
Biology
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
City
Greensboro
State
NC
Country
United States
Zip Code
27402
Rueppell, Olav; Yousefi, Babak; Collazo, Juan et al. (2017) Early life stress affects mortality rate more than social behavior, gene expression or oxidative damage in honey bee workers. Exp Gerontol 90:19-25
Rueppell, Olav; Aumer, Denise; Moritz, Robin Fa (2016) Ties between ageing plasticity and reproductive physiology in honey bees (Apis mellifera) reveal a positive relation between fecundity and longevity as consequence of advanced social evolution. Curr Opin Insect Sci 16:64-68
Li-Byarlay, Hongmei; Huang, Ming Hua; Simone-Finstrom, Michael et al. (2016) Honey bee (Apis mellifera) drones survive oxidative stress due to increased tolerance instead of avoidance or repair of oxidative damage. Exp Gerontol 83:15-21
Thompson, Eli; Everett, Jasmine; Rowell, Jonathan T et al. (2015) The Evolution of Cooperation is Affected by the Persistence of Fitness Effects, the Neighborhood Size and their Interaction. Lett Biomath 2:67-78
Ihle, Kate E; Rueppell, Olav; Huang, Zachary Y et al. (2015) Genetic architecture of a hormonal response to gene knockdown in honey bees. J Hered 106:155-65
Ross, Caitlin; Rychtá?, Jan; Rueppell, Olav (2015) A structured population model suggests that long life and post-reproductive lifespan promote the evolution of cooperation. J Theor Biol 369:85-94
Rueppell, O; Königseder, F; Heinze, J et al. (2015) Intrinsic survival advantage of social insect queens depends on reproductive activation. J Evol Biol 28:2349-54
von Wyschetzki, Katharina; Rueppell, Olav; Oettler, Jan et al. (2015) Transcriptomic Signatures Mirror the Lack of the Fecundity/Longevity Trade-Off in Ant Queens. Mol Biol Evol 32:3173-85