About

Juliana Rangel, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Apiculture in the Department of Entomology at Texas A&M University in College Station, TX. Born in Colombia, South America, she holds a B.S. in Ecology Behavior and Evolution from the University of California San Diego and a Ph.D. in Neurobiology and Behavior from Cornell University. Her research program focuses on the biological and environmental factors that affect the reproductive quality of honey bee queens and drones, the behavioral ecology and population genetics of unmanaged honey bees, and the quality and diversity of honey bee nutrition in a changing landscape. She has garnered over $1.9 million in extramural funding for her research. Rangel is actively involved in the beekeeping community, being a member of the Texas Beekeepers Association and speaking to numerous beekeeping associations across the USA and internationally. She teaches courses such as Honey Bee Biology, Introduction to Beekeeping, and Professional Grant and Contract Writing. Since 2014, she has coached TAMU’s undergraduate and graduate teams for the Entomology Games at the branch and national levels of the Entomological Society of America. Rangel serves as the 2022 Secretary for the Southwestern Branch of the ESA and is the past elected chair of the National ESA’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee. She has received several awards, including the James I. Hambleton Memorial Award in 2021, the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Diversity in 2019, and for Excellence in Early Career Research in 2016.

Research topics

• Biology
• Zoology
• Ecology
• Anatomy
• Botany
• Toxicology

Selected publications

• Assessing pollen nutrient content: a unifying approach for the study of bee nutritional ecology

  Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences · 2022 · 63 citations

  • Biology
  • Ecology

  pollen, we experimentally reveal biases in results using these methods. Finally, we use our collective data to propose a unifying approach for analysing pollen nutrient content. This will help researchers better study and understand the nutritional ecology-including foraging behaviour, nutrient regulation and health-of bees and other pollen feeders. This article is part of the theme issue 'Natural processes influencing pollinator health: from chemistry to landscapes'.

  DOI

• Transcriptomic analysis of the honey bee (Apis mellifera) queen spermathecae reveals genes that may be involved in sperm storage after mating

  PLoS ONE · 2021 · 25 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Biology
  • Zoology
  • Anatomy

  Honey bee (Apis mellifera) queens have a remarkable organ, the spermatheca, which successfully stores sperm for years after a virgin queen mates. This study uniquely characterized and quantified the transcriptomes of the spermathecae from mated and virgin honey bee queens via RNA sequencing to identify differences in mRNA levels based on a queen's mating status. The transcriptome of drone semen was analyzed for comparison. Samples from three individual bees were independently analyzed for mated queen spermathecae and virgin queen spermathecae, and three pools of semen from ten drones each were collected from three separate colonies. In total, the expression of 11,233 genes was identified in mated queen spermathecae, 10,521 in virgin queen spermathecae, and 10,407 in drone semen. Using a cutoff log2 fold-change value of 2.0, we identified 212 differentially expressed genes between mated and virgin spermathecal queen tissues: 129 (1.4% of total) were up-regulated and 83 (0.9% of total) were down-regulated in mated queen spermathecae. Three genes in mated queen spermathecae, three genes in virgin queen spermathecae and four genes in drone semen that were more highly expressed in those tissues from the RNA sequencing data were further validated by real time quantitative PCR. Among others, expression of Kielin/chordin-like and Trehalase mRNAs was highest in the spermathecae of mated queens compared to virgin queen spermathecae and drone semen. Expression of the mRNA encoding Alpha glucosidase 2 was higher in the spermathecae of virgin queens. Finally, expression of Facilitated trehalose transporter 1 mRNA was greatest in drone semen. This is the first characterization of gene expression in the spermathecae of honey bee queens revealing the alterations in mRNA levels within them after mating. Future studies will extend to other reproductive tissues with the purpose of relating levels of specific mRNAs to the functional competence of honey bee queens and the colonies they head.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The detection of honey bee (Apis mellifera)-associated viruses in ants

  Scientific Reports · 2020 · 44 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Biology
  • Zoology
  • Ecology

  Interspecies virus transmission involving economically important pollinators, including honey bees (Apis mellifera), has recently sparked research interests regarding pollinator health. Given that ants are common pests within apiaries in the southern U.S., the goals of this study were to (1) survey ants found within or near managed honey bee colonies, (2) document what interactions are occurring between ant pests and managed honey bees, and 3) determine if any of six commonly occurring honey bee-associated viruses were present in ants collected from within or far from apiaries. Ants belonging to 14 genera were observed interacting with managed honey bee colonies in multiple ways, most commonly by robbing sugar resources from within hives. We detected at least one virus in 89% of the ant samples collected from apiary sites (n = 57) and in 15% of ant samples collected at non-apiary sites (n = 20). We found that none of these ant samples tested positive for the replication of Deformed wing virus, Black queen cell virus, or Israeli acute paralysis virus, however. Future studies looking at possible virus transmission between ants and bees could determine whether ants can be considered mechanical vectors of honey bee-associated viruses, making them a potential threat to pollinator health.

  DOI

• Queen honey bee (Apis mellifera) pheromone and reproductive behavior are affected by pesticide exposure during development

  Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology · 2020 · 54 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Biology
  • Toxicology
  • Zoology
  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2010

  NSF · $189k · 2010–2013

Frequent coauthors

• Rong Ma

  Inner Mongolia Agricultural University

  14 shared

• Christina M. Grozinger

  Pennsylvania State University

  11 shared

• Pierre Lau

  Agricultural Research Service

  11 shared

• Thomas D. Seeley

  10 shared

• Elizabeth M. Walsh

  Honey Bee Breeding, Genetics, and Physiology Laboratory

  9 shared

• Marcelo S. Moretti

  Universidade Vila Velha

  9 shared

• Brenna E. Traver

  Pennsylvania State University

  7 shared

• David R. Tarpy

  North Carolina State University

  6 shared

Awards & honors

• 2022 Secretary for the Southwestern Branch of the ESA
• Past elected chair of the National ESA’s Diversity and Inclu…
• James I. Hambleton Memorial Award (2021)
• Dean’s award for Excellence in Diversity (2019)
• Dean’s award for Excellence in Early Career Research (2016)

Similar researchers at Texas A&M University

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• Raymond Carrollh-119
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• Renyi Zhangh-106
• Kim Dunbarh-103