Research:

My scientific interest revolves around social insects, particularly honey bees and ants. 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. Most of all, I believe that social insects are invaluable model organisms to test a variety of broad scientific ideas. My research program focuses on reproductive tactics, behavioral development and aging, and it integrates experimental and descriptive studies. My research methods comprise bioinformatics, genetic analyses, behavioral and physiological observations and experiments, and demographic and ecological approaches. Some current research projects are the bioinformatic analyses of previously identified QTL regions in the honey bee genome, a QTL mapping study of honey bee drone development, testing pleiotropic effects of behavioral QTL on longevity, several studies on honey bee demography, as well as morphological and behavioral studies on the ant reproductives.

 

Recent Publications:

Rueppell O., Bachelier, C., Fondrk M.K., Page R.E. Jr. 2007. Regulation of life history determines lifespan of worker honey bees (Apis mellifera L). Experimental Gerontology, in press.

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

Rueppell O., Chandra S., Pankiw T., Fondrk M.K., Beye M., Hunt G. & Page R.E. Jr. 2006. The genetic architecture of sucrose responsiveness in the honey bee (Apis mellifera L.). Genetics, 172: 243-251.

Rueppell O., Page R.E. Jr., Fondrk M.K. 2006. Male maturation response to selection of the pollen-hoarding syndrome in honey bees (Apis mellifera L.). Animal Behaviour, 71: 227-234.

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