Behaviour, Ecology and Evolution (BEE) Lab

Advancing bee research: genetics, ecology, evolution, conservation

The BEE Lab studies diverse aspects of bee biology, from genes to populations to ecosystem services to bee health. Our research aims to protect Australia’s bee populations and to advance fundamental knowledge in ecology and evolution.

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Safeguarding the future for bees and pollination in Australia

Bees are essential pollinators in our native ecosystems and many crops. Protecting bee populations and their pollination services in Australia requires both a better understanding of the basic biology of our bees and ecosystems, and innovative approaches to managing bee health in the face of threats such as parasites, viruses, climate change and invasive species.

Bee research can also provide powerful new insights into evolutionary, ecological and genetic processes that are applicable to many other natural systems.

The BEE Lab brings together molecular lab work, computational genomics and field research with wild bees to realize basic and applied goals. We work with Australia’s beekeeping industry and biosecurity to achieve the best outcomes for our managed and wild bee populations.

Nest of invasive Asian honey bees. Credit: Ros Gloag

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Our research

Bees are vital to Australian food security, via their role as crop pollinators. Honey bees are also the basis of our honey industry. We work on a range of projects that aim to benefit Australian bees and the industries that rely on them.

We are interested in how coevolutionary processes drive change at a variety of scales and systems, including coevolution between hosts and parasites, between plants and pollinators and between the different genomes of a eukaryotic cell.

Invasive species can cause havoc to native ecosystems. They are also sometimes powerful systems for understanding how populations rapidly adapt to new environments or new hosts, how they overcome genetic bottlenecks or other population genetic constraints, and how they respond to new pathogens.

Bees are essential pollinators in natural ecosystems as well as agricultural ones. Conserving Australia’s wild bee populations is therefore essential for conserving biodiversity more broadly. Australia’s bees also provide amazing opportunities to better understand pollination ecology, the evolution of pollinator behaviour and the response of insects to environmental change.

Our team

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