
Abigail Chapman
The Hidden Costs of Virus Infection on Queen Success
Abbi Chapman is beginning the final year of her PhD studies in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at UBC, where she also completed her BSc Hon. in Biochemistry in 2015. She is supervised by Dr. Leonard Foster and has been lucky to work in close collaboration with Dr. Alison McAfee on many projects. Abbi’s thesis is focused on identifying the impacts of virus infection on honey bee queen fertility and investigating a potential trade-off between reproduction and immunity. She found this focus after discovering a potential link between virus loads and queen failure in a survey of BC queens she and Ali conducted in 2019 in collaboration with the BCBBA. They hope this work will serve as one of the building blocks for better understanding and ultimately improving queen health.