About

We are part of the entomology department at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. Current research projects are primarily focused on honey bee behavior and health, but past projects have utilized a number of different arthropod species, and the lab thrives on a broadly comparative scientific framework.

 

Big questions of interest:

  • How do neural mechanisms impact behavioral function and evolution?
  • How do social interactions “get under the skin” to cause behavioral change?
  • Why do some social experiences have lifelong impacts while others do not?
  • How do the brain and peripheral systems interact to regulate behavior?
  • Are there evolutionarily conserved mechanisms of behavioral regulation?

Current projects:

  • Nutrition, social sensitivity, and the impacts of early-life environment on behavior and health
  • Neural, social, and ecological regulation of high-energy phenotypes
  • The molecular mechanisms that link behavior to health resilience
  • Social transmission of robbing behavior
  • The nutritional landscape in agricultural environments: impacts on wild bee and honey bee health and behavior

Representative publications:

Rittschof, C.C. et. al. (2018) Brain mitochondrial bioenergetics change with rapid and prolonged shifts in aggression in the honey bee, Apis mellifera. Journal of Experimental Biology. 221.

Rittschof, C.C. & K.A. Hughes. (2018) Advancing behavioural genomics by considering timescale. Nature Communications. 9: 489.

Rittschof, C.C. (2017) Sequential social experiences interact to modulate aggression but not brain gene expression in the honey bee (Apis mellifera). Frontiers in Zoology. 14: 1-10.

Rittschof, C.C. & S. Schirmeier (2017) Insect models of central nervous system energy metabolism and its links to behavior. Glia. 66: 1160-1175.

Rittschof, C.C. et. al. (2015) Early-life experience affects honey bee aggression and resilience to immune challenge. Scientific Reports. 5:15572.

Rittschof, C.C. et. al. (2014) Neuromolecular responses to social challenge: common mechanisms across mouse, stickleback fish and honey bee. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 111: 17929-17934.