Impact of pollutants on pollinators, and how neural circuits adapt to temperature changes

The Kavli Foundation and the U.S. National Science Foundation are collaborating to accelerate research in the emerging field of neurobiology in changing ecosystems, stemming from the foundation’s efforts in this area first announced in 2023. A joint Kavli-NSF grantmaking program was launched in December of 2023.

Building on early success of this program, Kavli and NSF announce its continuation with a second call for proposals, open through February 10, 2025, for projects tackling hard problems in this understudied field.

Research in this area has great potential to reveal novel scientific insights about how the brain adapts to change at the molecular, biophysical, cellular, and neural circuit levels.

Awardees of the first Kavli-NSF grants will study the impact of atmospheric pollutants on the sense of smell in pollinators, and how neural circuits adapt to changes in temperature in simple organisms such as the roundworm.

At the University of Washington, researchers Jeffrey Riffell and Joel Thornton will investigate how pollutants like NO₃ and ozone impact pollinators’ ability to recognize the scents of flowers. The team will focus on both daytime pollinators, the honeybee (A. mellifera), and a nocturnal pollinating moth (M. sexta) to examine how floral scents, degraded by pollutants, influence information processing in the primary olfactory center, the antennal lobe, and how this in turn affects the pollinators’ ability to locate flowers in the environment. As three-fourths of the world’s flowering plants and about one-third of the world’s food crops depend on animal pollinators for producing fruits, grains, and other crops, it’s crucial to understand how different chemical pollutants influence sensory processing and behavior in various insect pollinators.

Researchers at Brandeis University, Piali Sengupta and Eve Marder (2016 Kavli Prize Laureate), will study how the nematode worm C. elegans maintains resilience to temperature fluctuations, particularly in its feeding system, which includes a rhythmic neural circuit that activates feeding muscles. The researchers will combine experimental analyses and theoretical modeling to understand how temperature affects the feeding rhythm, focusing on how excitatory and inhibitory neuronal inputs and neuromodulation influence the feeding muscles’ response to temperature changes. The team will also examine natural variations in temperature resilience among wild C. elegans strains to understand how they have evolved specialized ways to manage temperature fluctuation. This in turn will further elucidate the ways in which animals have evolved to maintain functional resilience in changing environments.

“Through our collaboration with NSF, we are proud to support research that will give real, meaningful data to inform how the brain functions under certain types of strain imposed by environmental flux,” said Amy Bernard, director of life sciences at The Kavli Foundation. “The knowledge gained from these studies may lead to new insights into natural resilience mechanisms.”