Faculty and Staff

In 2014/2015, Arizona State University (ASU) Libraries, the Labriola National American Indian Data Center, and the ASU American Indian Studies Department completed an ASU Institute for Humanities Research (IHR) seed grant entitled “Carlos Montezuma’s Wassaja Newsletter: Digitization, Access and Context” to digitize all ASU held issues of the newsletter Wassaja Freedom’s Signal for the Indian, which Yavapai activist-intellectual Carlos Montezuma, MD (1866-1923) self-published during 1916-1922. The grant team additionally selected a portion of the ASU Libraries Carlos Montezuma archival collection for digitization to provide a more complete picture of Dr. Carlos Montezuma’s life and work.

The ASU grant team produced a searchable online collection on the ASU Digital Repository and created an online exhibition in conjunction with the IHR Nexus Lab’s Developing Wassaja Project. The Nexus Lab’s role at ASU is to grow the digital humanities through interdisciplinary collaborations bringing together humanities, science, and technology. The Nexus Lab partnered with the grant team to create the Developing Wassaja Project which provided an opportunity for faculty, staff, and students at ASU to engage in electronic publication through web application development.

The resulting web platform, Wassaja: A Carlos Montezuma Project, provides context for this digitized collection and facilitates community interaction, including a partnership with Dr. Montezuma’s home community the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation. In this webcast, Digital Projects Librarian Matthew Harp, Developing Wassaja Project team member Joe Buenker (subject librarian), and grant team member Joyce Martin (librarian and curator of the Labriola National American Indian Data Center) will discuss and demonstrate the resources created and the resulting partnership with the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation. The webcast will focus on identifying collaborators and needed skills to engage in Digital Humanities research and on identifying the stages of a collaborative project.

Participants will gain insight on working directly with diverse communities; overcoming technical limitations of traditional institutional repositories; collaborative strategies with faculty, research centers, and cultural heritage societies; solutions for moving hidden collections into an engaging digital exhibition; integrating digital humanities research and instruction with library curation; and preparing for long term costs and management issues.

Anthropology librarian Juliann Couture and Joyce Martin, curator of the Labriola National American Indian Data Center, looking at the Center's display of unique Hopi Kachina dolls. Four of the kachinas (Navan Kachina; Talavi Kachina; Flute Kachina; and Ahöla Kachina) were created by artist, carver, and former ASU employee Tony Dukepoo as a gift to the libraries in 1979. The kachina dolls are on display in the Labriola Center located on the 2nd floor of the Hayden Library on ASU's Tempe campus.

The Simon Ortiz and Labriola Center Lecture on Indigenous Land, Culture, and Community addresses topics and issues across disciplines in the arts, humanities, sciences, and politics. Underscoring Indigenous American experiences and perspectives, this Series seeks to create and celebrate knowledge that evolves from an Indigenous worldview that is inclusive and that is applicable to all walks of life.” Professor Simon Ortiz discussed the overall nature of the Series, especially emphasizing the global nature of Indigenous concerns. Joyce Martin and Matthew Harp elaborated on the contributions of the Labriola National American Indian Data Center and ASU Libraries to the Series.

The Labriola Center hosts an informal event in Hayden Library which facilitates close interaction between the featured speaker and audience members. The ASU Libraries records the evening lectures which take place at the Heard Museum and presents both an audio podcast and streaming video of each lecture on the ASU Library Channel webpage. This lecture series provides not only a chance for community discussion at the events themselves, but through the innovative use of technology the ASU Libraries enables additional forums for discussion in blogs and web pages which choose to link to the streaming videos.

We know very little about how soil-borne pollutants such as selenium (Se) can impact pollinators, even though Se has contaminated soils and plants in areas where insect pollination can be critical to the functioning of both agricultural and natural ecosystems. Se can be biotransferred throughout the food web, but few studies have examined its effects on the insects that feed on Se-accumulating plants, particularly pollinators. In laboratory bioassays, we used proboscis extension reflex (PER) and taste perception to determine if the presence of Se affected the gustatory response of honey bee (Apis mellifera L., Hymenoptera: Apidae) foragers. Antennae and proboscises were stimulated with both organic (selenomethionine) and inorganic (selenate) forms of Se that commonly occur in Se-accumulating plants. Methionine was also tested. Each compound was dissolved in 1 M sucrose at 5 concentrations, with sucrose alone as a control. Antennal stimulation with selenomethionine and methionine reduced PER at higher concentrations. Selenate did not reduce gustatory behaviors. Two hours after being fed the treatments, bees were tested for sucrose response threshold. Bees fed selenate responded less to sucrose stimulation. Mortality was higher in bees chronically dosed with selenate compared with a single dose. Selenomethionine did not increase mortality except at the highest concentration. Methionine did not significantly impact survival. Our study has shown that bees fed selenate were less responsive to sucrose, which may lead to a reduction in incoming floral resources needed to support coworkers and larvae in the field. If honey bees forage on nectar containing Se (particularly selenate), reductions in population numbers may occur due to direct toxicity. Given that honey bees are willing to consume food resources containing Se and may not avoid Se compounds in the plant tissues on which they are foraging, they may suffer similar adverse effects as seen in other insect guilds.

Octopamine plays an important role in many behaviors in invertebrates. It acts via binding to G protein coupled receptors located on the plasma membrane of responsive cells. Several distinct subtypes of octopamine receptors have been found in invertebrates, yet little is known about the expression pattern of these different receptor subtypes and how each subtype may contribute to different behaviors. One honey bee (Apis mellifera) octopamine receptor, AmOA1, was recently cloned and characterized. Here we continue to characterize the AmOA1 receptor by investigating its distribution in the honey bee brain. We used two independent antibodies produced against two distinct peptides in the carboxyl-terminus to study the distribution of the AmOA1 receptor in the honey bee brain. We found that both anti-AmOA1 antibodies revealed labeling of cell body clusters throughout the brain and within the following brain neuropils: the antennal lobes; the calyces, pedunculus, vertical (alpha, gamma) and medial (beta) lobes of the mushroom body; the optic lobes; the subesophageal ganglion; and the central complex. Double immunofluorescence staining using anti-GABA and anti-AmOA1 receptor antibodies revealed that a population of inhibitory GABAergic local interneurons in the antennal lobes express the AmOA1 receptor in the cell bodies, axons and their endings in the glomeruli. In the mushroom bodies, AmOA1 receptors are expressed in a subpopulation of inhibitory GABAergic feedback neurons that ends in the visual (outer half of basal ring and collar regions) and olfactory (lip and inner basal ring region) calyx neuropils, as well as in the collar and lip zones of the vertical and medial lobes. The data suggest that one effect of octopamine via AmOA1 in the antennal lobe and mushroom body is to modulate inhibitory neurons.

Neural representations of odors are subject to computations that involve sequentially convergent and divergent anatomical connections across different areas of the brains in both mammals and insects. Furthermore, in both mammals and insects higher order brain areas are connected via feedback connections. In order to understand the transformations and interactions that this connectivity make possible, an ideal experiment would compare neural responses across different, sequential processing levels. Here we present results of recordings from a first order olfactory neuropile – the antennal lobe (AL) – and a higher order multimodal integration and learning center – the mushroom body (MB) – in the honey bee brain. We recorded projection neurons (PN) of the AL and extrinsic neurons (EN) of the MB, which provide the outputs from the two neuropils. Recordings at each level were made in different animals in some experiments and simultaneously in the same animal in others. We presented two odors and their mixture to compare odor response dynamics as well as classification speed and accuracy at each neural processing level. Surprisingly, the EN ensemble significantly starts separating odor stimuli rapidly and before the PN ensemble has reached significant separation. Furthermore the EN ensemble at the MB output reaches a maximum separation of odors between 84–120 ms after odor onset, which is 26 to 133 ms faster than the maximum separation at the AL output ensemble two synapses earlier in processing. It is likely that a subset of very fast PNs, which respond before the ENs, may initiate the rapid EN ensemble response. We suggest therefore that the timing of the EN ensemble activity would allow retroactive integration of its signal into the ongoing computation of the AL via centrifugal feedback.

This article describes the cellular sources for tyramine and the cellular targets of tyramine via the Tyramine Receptor 1 (AmTyr1) in the olfactory learning and memory neuropils of the honey bee brain. Clusters of approximately 160 tyramine immunoreactive neurons are the source of tyraminergic fibers with small varicosities in the optic lobes, antennal lobes, lateral protocerebrum, mushroom body (calyces and gamma lobes), tritocerebrum and subesophageal ganglion (SEG). Our tyramine mapping study shows that the primary sources of tyramine in the antennal lobe and calyx of the mushroom body are from at least two Ventral Unpaired Median neurons (VUMmd and VUMmx) with cell bodies in the SEG. To reveal AmTyr1 receptors in the brain, we used newly characterized anti-AmTyr1 antibodies. Immunolocalization studies in the antennal lobe with anti-AmTyr1 antibodies showed that the AmTyr1 expression pattern is mostly in the presynaptic sites of olfactory receptor neurons (ORNs). In the mushroom body calyx, anti-AmTyr1 mapped the presynaptic sites of uniglomerular Projection Neurons (PNs) located primarily in the microglomeruli of the lip and basal ring calyx area. Release of tyramine/octopamine from VUM (md and mx) neurons in the antennal lobe and mushroom body calyx would target AmTyr1 expressed on ORN and uniglomerular PN presynaptic terminals. The presynaptic location of AmTyr1, its structural similarity with vertebrate alpha-2 adrenergic receptors, and previous pharmacological evidence suggests that it has an important role in the presynaptic inhibitory control of neurotransmitter release.