ICE Network Fargo

Size constrains oxygen delivery capacity within but not between bumble bee castes in Bombus impatiens

Rikki Walter, Joseph. P. Rinehart, Michael E. Dillon, and Kendra. J. Greenlee Abstract Bumble bees are eusocial, with distinct worker and queen castes that vary strikingly in size and life-history. The smaller workers rely on energetically-demanding foraging flights to collect resources for rearing brood. Queens can be 3 to 4 times larger than workers, flying…

A dose of experimental hormesis: When mild stress protects and improves animal performance

Raymond Berry, III and Giancarlo López-Martínez Abstract The adaptive response characterized by a biphasic curve is known as hormesis. In a hormesis framework, exposure to low doses leads to protective and beneficial responses while exposures to high doses are damaging and detrimental. Comparative physiologists have studied hormesis for over a century, but our understanding of…

Adaptation to the abiotic environment in insects: the influence of variability on ecophysiology and evolutionary genomics

Michael E Dillon, Jeffrey D Lozier Abstract Advances in tools to gather environmental, phenotypic, and molecular data have accelerated our ability to detect abiotic drivers of variation across the genome-to-phenome spectrum in model and non-model insects. However, differences in the spatial and temporal resolution of these data sets may create gaps in our understanding of…

Fluctuating thermal regimes prevent chill injury but do not change patterns of oxidative stress in the alfalfa leafcutting bee, Megachile rotundata

Alex S Torson, George D Yocum, Joseph P Rinehart, Sean A Nash, Julia H Bowsher Abstract In insects, prolonged exposure to unseasonably low temperatures can lead to detrimental physiological effects known as chill injury. Changes to active and passive transport across epithelia during chilling likely drive the collapse of ion gradients, metabolic imbalance and potentially…

RASMA: a reverse search algorithm for mining maximal frequent subgraphs

Salem, Saeed; Alokshiya, Mohammed; Hasan, Mohammad Al Published March 16, 2021 Abstract Background Given a collection of coexpression networks over a set of genes, identifying subnetworks that appear frequently is an important research problem known as mining frequent subgraphs. Maximal frequent subgraphs are a representative set of frequent subgraphs; A frequent subgraph is maximal if…

Immediate Transcriptional Response to a Temperature Pulse under a Fluctuating Thermal Regime

Dacotah Melicher, Alex S Torson, Tanner J Anderson, George D Yocum, Joseph P Rinehart, Julia H Bowsher Published August, 2019 Abstract The response of ectotherms to temperature stress is complex, non-linear, and is influenced by life stage and previous thermal exposure. Mortality is higher under constant low temperatures than under a fluctuating thermal regime (FTR) that maintains the…

Timing of diapause initiation and overwintering conditions alter gene expression profiles in Megachile rotundata

Lizzette D. Cambron-Kopco, George D. Yocum, Kathleen M. Yeater, Kendra J. Greenlee Abstract Within the United States and Canada, the primary pollinator of alfalfa is the alfalfa leafcutting bee (ALCB), Megachile rotundata. Our previous findings showed that overwintering conditions impacted gene expression profile in ALCB prepupae that entered diapause early in the season. However, ALCB…

Fostering CHANGE

Research Opportunity for Recent College Graduates The NDSU Fostering CHANGE program provides mentored research experiences to recent college graduates. Participants in the CHANGE network join a cohort of trainees in a robust training environment that provides professional development and mentorship from a diverse network of biologists from Universities, federal government, industry, and nonprofits. Mentees will…