Research:

My scientific interest focuses on causes and consequences of social evolution, and I use honey bees as models to evaluate these scientific problems at the genetic, cellular, individual and societal level of biological organization. Accordingly, my research methods comprise bioinformatics, genetic analyses, studies of cells, behavioral and physiological observations and experiments, and demographic and ecological approaches. Social insects fascinate me because their societies add an interesting level of complexity, many social insects groups have experienced a broad ecological success and some species are very important to humans. Some specific current research projects include studies of honey be reproductive traits in the context of the reproductive ground plan hypothesis of social evolution, genetic characterizations of complex traits that are important in social organization, the investigation of honey bee intestinal stem cells, several biodemographic studies of aging, and comparative genomics projects that use Asian honey bee species to find resistance mechanisms to Varroa mites and investigate social genome structure, focusing on the exceptional recombination rates of social insects.

 

Recent Publications:

Linksvayer T.A., Rueppell O., Siegel A., Kaftanoglu O., Page R.E. Jr., Amdam G.V.A. (2009) The genetic basis of transgressive ovary size in honey bee workers. Genetics, 183 (2) in press; doi:10.1534/genetics.109.105452.

Rueppell O. (2009) Characterization of quantitative trait loci for the age of first foraging in honey bee workers. Behavior Genetics, 39: 541-553. doi: 10.1007/s10519-009-9278-8.

Ward* K. N., Coleman* J. Clittin*, K., Fahrbach, S., Rueppell O. (2008) Age, caste, and behavior determine the replicative activity of intestinal stem cells in honeybees (Apis mellifera L.). Experimental Gerontology, 43: 530-537.

Rueppell O., Christine S., Mulcrone* C. & Groves* L. (2007) Aging without functional senescence in honey bee workers. Current Biology, 17: R274-R275.

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