About this Research Topic
The honeybee is one of the most valuable insect pollinators, because it plays a key role in pollinating natural vegetation and cultivated crop plants, leading to a significant contribution to world food production. In addition, honeybees have served as an essential model organism for understanding social behavior for a long time. Researchers started to investigate the biology of this fascinating insect at the beginning of 20th century. For a hundred years, most studies of the honeybee did not exceed the description of the whole colony or at the single animal level.
Despite its ecological and economical importance and its use as a model organism as well, honeybee biology is poorly understood at the molecular, biochemical and cellular biology level compared with other model organisms such as the mouse or fruit fly. With the fast advances of molecular biology, successful completion of the honeybee genome sequence and with the advances in related gene/protein technologies (genomics, transcriptomics, metabolomics and proteomics), we can now utilize these powerful tools to study several aspects of honeybee biology such as:
• Pollination
• Developmental biology;
• Physiology;
• Behavior;
• Neurobiology;
• Genetics;
• Pathology and toxicology;
• Aging.
A wide cascade of honeybee biology still remains elusive, such as the mechanism involved in regulating cast differentiation. Therefore, in depth exploration of honeybee biology using cutting edge technology and previous knowledge is required and we aim to showcase this with our Research Topic.
Despite its ecological and economical importance and its use as a model organism as well, honeybee biology is poorly understood at the molecular, biochemical and cellular biology level compared with other model organisms such as the mouse or fruit fly. With the fast advances of molecular biology, successful completion of the honeybee genome sequence and with the advances in related gene/protein technologies (genomics, transcriptomics, metabolomics and proteomics), we can now utilize these powerful tools to study several aspects of honeybee biology such as:
• Pollination
• Developmental biology;
• Physiology;
• Behavior;
• Neurobiology;
• Genetics;
• Pathology and toxicology;
• Aging.
A wide cascade of honeybee biology still remains elusive, such as the mechanism involved in regulating cast differentiation. Therefore, in depth exploration of honeybee biology using cutting edge technology and previous knowledge is required and we aim to showcase this with our Research Topic.
Keywords: Honeybee, Genetics, Proteome, Genome, Metabolome
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