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Ant Genomics

Organizers: Tim Linksvayer, Jürgen Gadau, Chris R. Smith

With the advent of 4-6 complete ant genomes in 2010, countless new opportunities will arise for our understanding of the the origin and evolution of ants, the genetic architecture of social traits, regulation of division of labor, etc.. Three goals critical to the success of an ant genome community are that these emerging data are freely available, easily accessible and centrally curated. We will discuss the current state of the art and different approaches to achieve these three goals . We will also discuss how to expand the current data bases (e.g. more ant genomes), develop new tools (e.g. transformation, microarrays) and whether a separate yearly ant or social insect genome meeting would be a good idea (and who will organize the first one if we decide to do one).

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Pollinator decline and honeybee colony losses

Organizer: Jay Evans

This open round table discussion aims to shed more light on the causes of honeybee colony losses and pollinator decline. Since a New York Times headline and papers in leading journals, the issue of honeybee colony losses and pollinator decline has received considerable interest not only in the IUSSI community but also in the general public. Indeed, beekeeping is a declining industry and on top of that apiculturists in the northern hemisphere are being regularly confronted with severe colony losses, showing a wide range of symptoms, including CCD (= Colony Collapse Disorder). For the last years, such losses of Apis mellifera colonies appear to occur at a much higher magnitude and frequency, but the underlying factors and mechanisms are poorly understood. Pests and pathogens (e.g. bacteria, fungi and viruses), environmental aspects (e.g. malnutrition, poisoning, sublethal effects of pesticides) and bee vitality/diversity constitute major suspects. Due to the ubiquitous ectoparasitic mite Varroa destructor, interactions between factors are inevitable and most likely contribute to the massive recent losses. Moreover, the decline seems not to be restricted to Apis mellifera but also for other pollinators suggesting that some mechanisms are similar. Therefore cutting edge research on pollinator decline and colony losses is timely and many respective large-scale proposals have been granted (BEE DOC, COLOSS, STEP, VIVA).

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The Systems Approach to the Organisation of Social Insect Colonies

Organizer: Ana Sendova-Franks

The systems approach has been accepted as a new way of studying biological organisation. It combines in a virtuous circle theory, computer modelling and biological experiments. Until recently this approach has been highlighted mainly in the context of cells, tissues and organisms. Increasingly, however, social insects are being recognised as a prime model system for understanding links between the individual and collective levels. This is because social insects represent ecologically successful systems honed by natural selection which lend themselves to experimental manipulation revealing behaviour at multiple levels of organisation. For these reasons social insect biology is now attracting scientists from areas as diverse as physics, engineering, physiology, neurobiology, psychology, transport, environment, health and social behaviour. This workshop aims to bring together the latest achievements in our understanding of colony-level processes such as building, nest choice, foraging, resource distribution or the spread of disease. We will put the systems approach to the test. What new insights can it deliver? Can it integrate several colony-level processes? We will utilise the time of the workshop on Tuesday night for eight oral presentation slots of 15 min duration (including questions) to facilitate informal discussions during the remaining three days of the congress.

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Challenges of Honey Bee Transgenic Technology

Organizers: Gro V. Amdam and Gene E. Robinson

This round-table meeting on honey bee transgenic technology aims to develop a workgroup initiative that can establish functional tools for social insect transgenesis.

As a community, our studies of honey bee brain and behavior, physiology and pathology, development and communication have reached new levels of sophistication over the last 15 years. Over the same 15 years, many labs have wanted to meet the growing expectation that transgenic techniques be used and developed further to test gene function, e.g. by conditional overexpressing or deletion mutants.

Transgenesis has been attempted by homologous recombination and aided element- or bacteriophage site-specific transposition. Tools such as sperm-mediated transfection, electroporation, and introduction by injection or cell culture have been explored in combination with systems such as Baculovirus vector and Piggyback or mariner elements. Associated resources such as mutagens, chimeric technology and methods for storage of germplasm have also been tested.

Yet, we have not achieved workable approaches to transgenesis so far or founded strategies to maintain/preserve transgenic stocks as a community-wide resource. The availability of several hymenopteran genomes makes this challenge even more relevant.

The round-table meeting is an invitation to discuss whether and how we can unite resources and divide labor: to increase our joint likelihood of success, and to reduce the costs and risks on each lab that participates in a workgroup initiative.

The meeting will begin with a presentation by Dr. Antónia Monteiro on transgenesis in butterfly, www.lepdata.org/monteiro/index.html , and a synopsis by Dr. Navdeep Mutti on the efforts to achieve honey bee and social insect transgenesis to date.

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