ECR Spotlight is a series of interviews with early-career authors from a selection of papers published in Journal of Experimental Biology and aims to promote not only the diversity of early-career researchers (ECRs) working in experimental biology but also the huge variety of animals and physiological systems that are essential for the ‘comparative’ approach. Bella Xu Ying is an author on ‘ Context-dependent coordination of movement in Tribolium castaneum larvae’, published in JEB. Bella conducted the research described in this article while a BSc student in Dr Maarten Zwart and Dr Stefan Pulver's lab at School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, UK. Bella is investigating everything motor control, especially how nervous systems generate and modulate movements, from ions to cells to circuits to behaviour.
Bella Xu Ying
How did you become interested in biology?
Although I was better at chemistry during high school and my first year of undergrad, biology was always the most interesting out of the three core sciences I was taught. I'm a very visual person, and the cells, tissues, organs and animals were always easier to picture mentally and grasp conceptually than the electron orbitals and gravitational energies. It is also just extremely interesting to study the biological mechanisms underlying animal behaviour when there are analogous systems guiding my own behaviours. It makes you more aware of your own movements; how and why they occur.
Describe your scientific journey and your current research focus
Early on in my undergraduate degree, I, maybe like many new neuroscience students, started off interested in how disruptions to normal brain function leads to neurodegeneration and disease. As such, I took on a brief research assistant role in a project investigating Drosophila models of ALS. It wasn't until the end of my second year where one of my supervisors said off-hand: ‘Sure, you can study movement disorders and disease but isn't it more interesting to know how movements are generated in the first place?’ He probably doesn't even remember saying this, but it flipped a switch in my brain. Now, I find that it's not just more interesting to study how motor systems function, but without this foundational knowledge, we cannot even begin to understand how things go awry in diseased states. A lot of this newfound motivation and interest culminated in this paper. It also fed into my current projects, one looking at how dopamine modulates motor programmes and another investigating electrical synapses in CPG networks.
How would you explain the main findings/message of your paper to a member of the public?
Pest insects like red flour beetles cause up to 20% loss in dry stored products like grain and rice worldwide. Their success largely lies in their ability to move over and through these deformable and unpredictable environments. Our paper describes how these beetles naturally move and what strategies they employ to adapt to challenging environments. We document, for the first time, that beetle larvae use a wave gait in which each leg pair moves symmetrically starting from the back. When climbing challenging walls, when they lift their legs, they also plant their tail ends against the wall surface for extra stability. When we surgically prevent the brain from communicating with the tail, larvae walk slower, fall off walls and fail to tunnel into their favourite food – flour. Our results therefore give first insights into mechanisms underlying natural beetle larvae movement and the key strategies they employ to overcome environmental challenges, which could be a promising target for new pest control methods.
What do you enjoy most about research, and why?
A lot of techniques in motor systems research labs actually involve using and refining your own motor skills, like microdissections and electrophysiology. It's not only fitting for the field, but I personally prefer to rely on my motor skills and motor memory for experiments instead of, say, doing mental arithmetic and calculating solution concentrations on the fly. I find it fun to study motor control whilst exercising it myself. It's like riding a bicycle, once you learn it, your hands almost move by themselves. Another aspect I really enjoy is making figures and visualizing data. It makes my efforts feel more concrete and tangible, and also allows me to share my results with others.
What is the most important piece of equipment for your research, what does it do and what question did it help you address?
Maybe this is a cheat answer but it would have to be my hands. And maybe this seems obvious but without them I can't do anything: I can't dissect, I can't move electrodes, I can't pipette solutions, I can't build behaviour rigs, and I can't type the words you are reading right now. They helped me build the behavioural arenas and inclination rigs used in this paper to study the mechanisms underlying natural and challenged locomotion. They also allowed me to dissect animals after these behavioural tests to verify the success of our surgeries, thus validating the phenotypes we saw. Most importantly, they helped me analyse the data, plot the graphs and write the paper that communicated these findings to you!
What is one thing about you that others might find surprising?
I think I often come off as quiet and reserved in my day-to-day interactions. So it may be surprising to people that I enjoy playing the drums and singing. Whenever I'm the only person left in the lab, I'm often tapping my feet, drumming my fingers on the desk, whistling or singing out loud while working. It gives me energy and lifts my mood even when experiments are failing miserably. But I wouldn't do this around others, aside from it being disruptive, it'd be far too embarrassing…
What's next for you?
First, I'll graduate with my Bachelor's degree this summer! Exciting times. After that, I'll keep working on some other projects I'm involved in, before starting my Masters by research come September. Safe to say, I won't stop doing research anytime soon.
Bella Xu Ying’s contact details: School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Andrews KY16 9JP, UK.
E-mail: [email protected]
