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Diet, Immunity, & Gut Microbes in Bees
For my dissertation, I studied the effects of diet and gut microbes on pathogen infections in bees. My first chapter was a review paper summarizing our current understanding of how bees defend themselves against pathogens and the role that diet and gut microbes have on immunity and infection outcomes.
Much of my PhD work stemmed from the finding that pollen from sunflowers and goldenrod (Family: Asteraceae) reduces a gut pathogen in bumble bees (Giacomini et al., 2018, LoCascio et al., 2019). In collaboration with the Sadd Lab, I investigated how a sunflower pollen diet impacts the bumble bee immune system as a potential mechanism of the reduced infection. We found that consuming sunflower pollen did not significantly affect activity of the immune enzyme phenoloxidase or hemolymph antibacterial activity. You can read more in our recent paper: Fowler et al., 2022, Philosophical Transactions B.
In addition, I am interested in how diet quality and diversity impact pathogen resistance via changes in the gut microbiome. In collaboration with the McFrederick Lab, I am investigating how a diet of sunflower pollen and parasite infection affects bacterial communities within the gut. These two projects are funded by the USDA National Institute of Food & Agriculture.
