NiCE: Investigating nervous system integration of daylength and temperature mismatches in a model for resilience, the honey bee (NSF)

Animals synchronize their behaviors with their environment using several different entrainment cues; this provides flexibility that helps species adjust to dynamic ecosystems. However, cue mismatches resulting from anthropogenic environmental change can also cause maladaptive behavioral timing. With climate change, temperatures shift while daylength stays the same, causing a mismatch between the two main abiotic cues animals use to synchronize their behaviors with their environment. The consequences of these mismatches will vary depending on how cues are prioritized and integrated in the nervous system. Thus, knowing how cues act in combination to regulate rhythmic phenotypes is urgently needed, and yet currently limited. The Western honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) is a critical model pollinator species wherein foraging activity is entrained to both light and temperature cycles. However, no study has investigated how these cues are integrated in the nervous system. Here we assess how temperature influences rhythmic neuromolecular processes related to light and temperature perception and integration. Using semi-natural experiments that mirror natural conditions, we propose to use qPCR in light- and temperature-sensing tissues, and bulk RNAseq in the rest of the brain over a 24 h cycle to determine how variation in temperature impacts nervous system molecular rhythms (Obj 1). We will use single-nucleus RNAseq and RNAscope to determine the cell populations and brain areas that are most vulnerable to climate-change-relevant mismatches between temperature and daylength (Obj 2). We will use electroretinography to assess how temperature and daylength impact visual sensitivity and spatial resolving abilities (Obj 3).