Professor Hongmei Li-Byarlay of Central State University Gave a Lecture in the College

On June 26^th of 2019, Professor Hongmei Li-Byarlay of Central State University (U.S.) was invited to present a research seminar at the No. 4 building of Ba Li Tai campus at Nankai University. The seminar’s title is “Genetic Basis of the aggression in Social Honeybees”.

Honeybees are important pollinators and important beneficial insects. They are one of the most important animal models to study behavior, ecology, and ethology. However, a lot of genetic mechanisms for their social behavior are not clear.  Dr. Li-Byarlay presented her research on the genetic basis of the social behavior of honeybees, especially the aggression. Bees displayed higher aggression when the activities of complexes I and V of the oxidative phosphorylation pathway were inhibited. She also used the Drosophila melanogaster model (transgenic flies) and UAS-GAL4 RNAi crosses to test individual genes. After knocking down gene ND-20 of complex 1 in the nerul cells, flies showed increased aggression. However, flies didn’t show significant increase of aggression when the knocking down of ND-20 occurring in glial cells. Epigenetic research also showed different of DNA methylation between queen bee and worker bee.

More than 70 students and faculty attended the seminar talk, and asked a lot of questions.

After the seminar, Dr. Li-Byarlay had further discussion of basic research of animal behavior and physiology with faculty from Department of Zoology and Developmental Biology. Dr. Li-Byarlay is also recruiting potential doctoral students from Nankai University.

Dr. Li-Byarlay obtained master of zoology from Nan Kai University in 2002, doctoral degree of entomology at Purdue University, performed postdoctoral research at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and North Carolina State University. Now she’s a tenure track Assistant Professor of Entomology at Central State University, Ohio. She is also an adjunct faculty with Wright State University, North Carolina State University. Her research focus is on honeybee genes and behavior, physiology, and pollinator health. Her funding support is from USDA and NSF. She has published 30+ paper on PNAS，Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, Nucleic Acid Research, Genes-Genomes-Genetics，Insect Molecular Biology, Experimental Gerontology, and Advances in Insect Physiology.