Michelle M. Elekonich

Associate Professor

Ph.D. University of Washington, Seattle

Animal behavior; Endocrinology

michelle.elekonich@unlv.edu

I am interested in how an animal’s experience of the social and ecological environments interacts with its hormones, neuropeptides and regulatory proteins to affect development, behavioral plasticity and senescence relative to normal behaviors. My model organism of choice is the honey bee. Because of their experimental tractability, recently sequenced genome and well understood molecular, physiological, ecological and behavioral biology, honey bees are an ideal model system for studying mechanisms of behavior and life history patterns. Behavior is the animal’s first line of interaction with the environment and the outcome of the integration of multiple biological systems. My laboratory group uses an interdisciplinary approach that synthesizes information from vast areas of biology, psychology and even physics to gain an understanding of behavior, its mechanisms and evolution. Current work in the lab focuses on the role of circadian patterns of juvenile hormone, expression of heat shock proteins and antioxidants in relation to behavior and aging, and multiple measures of stress in honey bees and other animals.

Selected Publications

• Williams, J.B., Roberts, S.P. and M.M. Elekonich. 2006 (in press). Heat shock proteins and their role in generating, maintaining and even preventing alternative insect phenotypes. In: Whitman, D.W. and T.N. Ananthakrishnan, eds. Phenotypic plasticity of insects: mechanism and consequences. Enfield, NH: Science Publishers, Inc. Invited chapter.
• Roberts, S.P. and M.M. Elekonich. 2005. Commentary: Behavioral development and the ontogeny of flight capacity in honey bees. Journal of Experimental Biology. 208: 4193-4198. Invited review.
• Elekonich, M.M. and S.P. Roberts. 2005. Physiological underpinnings of behavioral development in honey bees. Comparative biochemistry and physiology A. 141(4): 362-371
• Elekonich, M.M., Jez, K., Ross, A.J. and G.E. Robinson. 2003. Larval exposure to juvenile hormone effects development but not adult behavior in the honey bee (Apis mellifera). Journal of insect physiology. 49: 359-366.
• Schulz, D.J., Elekonich, M.M. and G.E. Robinson. 2003. Biogenic amines in the antennal lobes and the initiation and maintenance of foraging behavior in honey bees. Journal of neurobiology. 54: 406-416.