Honeybees consolidate navigation memory during sleep

Abstract

SUMMARYSleep is known to support memory consolidation in animals, including humans. Here we ask whether consolidation of novel navigation memory in honeybees depends on sleep. Foragers were exposed to a forced navigation task in which they learned to home more efficiently from an unexpected release site by acquiring navigational memory during the successful homing flight. This task was quantified using harmonic radar tracking and applied to bees that were equipped with a radio frequency identification device (RFID). The RFID was used to record their outbound and inbound flights and continuously monitor their behavior inside the colony, including their rest during the day and sleep at night. Bees marked with the RFID behaved normally inside and outside the hive. Bees slept longer during the night following forced navigation tasks, but foraging flights of different lengths did not lead to different rest times during the day or total sleep time during the night. Sleep deprivation before the forced navigation task did not alter learning and memory acquired during the task. However, sleep deprivation during the night after forced navigation learning reduced the probability of returning successfully to the hive from the same release site. It is concluded that consolidation of novel navigation memory is facilitated by night sleep in bees.

The colony environment modulates sleep in honey bee workers

“…the transfer of food or other fluids among conspecifics), which are all important means of communication in honey bees, are not necessary for the social experience-dependent modulation of subsequent sleep. These remarkable influences of the colony environment on sleep contrast with a recent study suggesting that in honey bee foragers (which were older than the young bees studied in the current report), sleep duration was not affected by the distance flown between the hive and a food source during the preceding day (Beyaert et al, 2012). In the same study, foragers that were forced to learn new navigation tasks indeed slept longer during the following night, but the differences were around 1 h and there were no differences between bees forced to learn long and short routes (Beyaert et al, 2012).…”

“…Honey bees exhibit all three behavioral characteristics of sleep: a period of quiescence (Eban-Rothschild and Bloch, 2008;Kaiser, 1988;Sauer et al, 2003;Sauer et al, 2004), an increased response threshold (Eban-Rothschild and Bloch, 2008; Kaiser, 1988;Kaiser and Steiner-Kaiser, 1983) and a homeostatic regulation mechanism (Klein et al, 2010;Sauer et al, 2004). In honey bee foragers, as in mammals and flies, sleep deprivation impairs learning and memory processes (Beyaert et al, 2012;Hussaini et al, 2009;Klein et al, 2010), and forager bees induced to learn novel navigational tasks sleep longer than control bees (Beyaert et al, 2012).…”

Acute Sleep Deprivation Blocks Short- and Long-Term Operant Memory inAplysia

“…81,82 In contrast, sleep deprivation in bees does not affect the acquisition of memory but rather its consolidation. 18,74 Based on our behavioral studies, Aplysia presents advantages as a simple model system for understanding the interactions between sleep deprivation and the induction of STM and LTM.…”

“…18,23 Sleep in invertebrates can be defined using behavioral characteristics including defined periods of inactivity, characteristic body posture during rest, preferred pii: sp-00313- 16 http://dx.doi.org/10.5665/sleep.6320…”

The foraging behaviour of honey bees, Apis mellifera: a review

“…Under some ecological conditions, a temporal shift from foraging activity to sleeping (napping) may occur (Klein and Seeley 2011). The night sleep of forager bees is very important and night sleep deprivation may impact the navigation memory of honey bees (Beyaert et al 2012).…”