Research in the Bell lab is focused on understanding why individual animals behave differently from each other. Even an individual fish, for example, behaves differently from other fish, through time and across situations. We study the proximate and ultimate causes of individual variation in the three-spined stickleback. Work in the Bell lab is focused on understanding behavioral variation both from a proximate and ultimate perspective. To that end, we study the neuroendocrine and molecular mechanisms that contribute to behavior, and the selective pressures that maintain variation within natural populations.
The Bell lab is involved in a collaborative project in our theme at the Carl Woese Institute for Genomic Biology to test the hypothesis that there is a ‘genetic toolkit’ for social behavior. We are comparing neurogenomic responses to social opportunities and challenges among honeybees, sticklebacks, and mice (PIs: Gene Robinson and Lisa Stubbs).
Our Principal Investigator is Alison Marie Bell.
Check out at our website here.