Location: Crop Bioprotection Research
Project Number: 5010-30400-001-002-A
Project Type: Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Jun 1, 2026
End Date: Jul 31, 2027
Objective:
Cooperator will continue to develop genomic resources to improve pollinator health and will enact new objectives to measure single-cell genomics and spatial transcriptomics in honey bees.
Specific objectives include:
1) Identify key gene regulation traits important for pollinator behavior.
2) Use the latest single cell/single nuclei RNA and DNA sequencing and spatial transcriptomic techniques to better understand the biology of honey bees.
3) Use CRISPR to study honey bee biology and health during "prenatal" development.
4) Provide research and institutional support for pollinator research in the midwestern agricultural ecosystem.
Approach:
There are 4,000 bee species in the United States, many of interest to agriculture and all of interest to biodiversity. This research will expand genetic research efforts for the primary agricultural pollinator, the honey bee, offering insights for other bees and beneficial insects. Techniques include CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) and single cell/single nuclei RNAseq and DNAseq and spatial transcriptomics.