While students walk through the halls of the Wehr Life Sciences Building, above them on the roof sit colonies of bees doing work of their own. Through all hours of the day, the bees spend their time growing their population, producing honey and providing insight for research.
Underneath the building and within the corridors of the basement lies The Cook Lab, a center of research in entomology, the study of insects. Specifically, the lab focuses on bee populations and the social behaviors that govern them.
“Social insects have some of the most complex behaviors that rival human societies,” Chelsea Cook, an assistant professor of biological sciences and the primary investigator of the lab, said.
The lab takes pride in looking at behaviors with ecological relevance, investigating behaviors and then putting them back into the field to research further. The goal of such a process is “to understand the social, environmental, and physiological contexts that shape behavior.”
“You zoom in and you look at physiology, genetics, gene expression, things like that, and then you zoom out,” Cook said. “What is the impact on ecology and evolution of that behavior? So, we try to tell the whole story, not just one component of the story.”
The Cook Lab focuses its research on social behavior, specifically in regard to fanning, a thermoregulatory behavior in bees. When fanning, bees flap their wings from the entrance of the colony, which helps to create airflow and bring down the temperature of the colony and the larvae inside of it.
“They have to do this because their babies only develop at a certain temperature, so it’s super important for them to circulate air in order to keep the colony cool,” Justine Nguyen, a graduate student in The Cook Lab, said.
The action of fanning provides an opportunity for advanced research questions, which the lab asks to gain a better understanding of social behavior.
“Throughout the day, bees have to be able to sense the environment and then do this job,” Cook said. “And so that’s kind of where we intersect, and what questions we ask is, ‘How do the bees sense the environment and how do they know what the temperature is?’ And then, ‘How does that change their physiology to make them do the behavior?’”
The answers to such questions work to provide further insight into the social reasoning behind the behavior.
“We’re trying to get these little snapshots to try to answer that question: how do they actually assemble and know how many are needed to do this job?” Cook said.
While the lab approaches bees scientifically by nature, there is also a personal interest in the research being done and its subjects.
“[In a lab at Arizona State University], I was exposed to learning and memory in honeybees,” Rachael Halby, a graduate student in The Cook Lab, said. “It was a lot of fun, and I fell in love with them and how social they are and the way that they take care of their sisters. I was just like, ‘Oh my gosh, you’re so much better than humans. I love you!’”
In addition to growing internally, the lab works to grow science outside of its own walls through community outreach efforts. Included in those pursuits are beekeeping courses taught at Sturtevant Transitional Facility, a work-release prison.
“These men had a blast and learned so much and asked really great scientific questions about bee behavior,” Halby said.
The lab also works with local elementary and middle schools, teaching beekeeping classes as well as coding in efforts to encourage scientific discovery and enthusiasm.
“All of us in the lab have participated in some sort of community outreach events,” Nguyen said. “We bring [a frame of bees] to elementary schools or to middle schools of underrepresented communities to try and get some positive exposure to science and try to inspire the next generation of scientists.”
The combination of scientific and community impact is a focal point of the lab’s mission.
“We try to do some fun stuff and try to ‘be the difference’, not only with our science, but also we think it’s our responsibility as scientists to give back to the community,” Cook said.
As The Cook Lab grows in its outreach, it also aspires to grow inside of the lab environment, investigating questions that will impact the future of entomology, even if they are difficult to answer.
“Research is not just about reducing uncertainty, like we’re never going to just know the answers,” Halby said. “But it is about the fun of trying to do that and knowing that you’re not ever going to be perfect, and there’s always going to be more to learn. And I think that that’s a really cool thing about our jobs here.
This story was written by Lance Schulteis. He can be reached at [email protected].
