Honeybees modify gustatory responsiveness after receiving nectar from foragers within the hive

Martínez, Andrés S.; Farina, Walter M.

doi:10.1007/s00265-007-0477-0

Cited by 28 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…Gustatory response scores (GRS) of (A) bees obtained from an observational hive (dark grey) or from cages kept in the laboratory (light grey) and (B) 2/3-, 5/6-, 9/10-and 14/15-dayold bees after being injected with Hepes buffer (white) or insulin (black middle-aged bees, an additional insulin shock did not increase sucrose responsiveness, but decreased it. Sucrose responsiveness is closely related to nutritional status and, thus, feeding motivation (Martinez and Farina, 2008;Pankiw et al, 2004). As high levels of insulin lead to foraging activities (Ament et al, 2008), it seems clear that the foraging task is directly tuned by insulin levels present in the bee hemolymph.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…By assessing the PER towards water and sucrose solutions varying in concentration, it is possible to estimate the sucrose response threshold (SRT) of individuals, a measure of gustatory responsiveness (Page et al, 1998). This assay can give information about the bees' nutritional status (Martinez and Farina, 2008;Pankiw et al, 2004). Foragers often show high sucrose responsiveness, whereas the opposite is found in young and middle-aged bees (Scheiner et al, 2004).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Insulin effects on honeybee appetitive behaviour

Goñalons

Guiraud

Sanchez

et al. 2016

Journal of Experimental Biology

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Worker honeybees (Apis mellifera) carry out multiple tasks throughout their adult lifespan. It has been suggested that the insulin/insulin-like signalling pathway participates in regulating behavioural maturation in eusocial insects. Insulin signalling increases as the honeybee worker transitions from nurse to food processor to forager. As behavioural shifts require differential usage of sensory modalities, our aim was to assess insulin effects on olfactory and gustatory responsiveness as well as on olfactory learning in preforaging honeybee workers of different ages. Adults were reared in the laboratory or in the hive. Immediately after being injected with insulin or vehicle (control), and focusing on the proboscis extension response, bees were tested for their spontaneous response to odours, sucrose responsiveness and ability to discriminate odours through olfactory conditioning. Bees injected with insulin have higher spontaneous odour responses. Sucrose responsiveness and odour discrimination are differentially affected by treatment according to age: whereas insulin increases gustatory responsiveness and diminishes learning abilities of younger workers, it has the opposite effect on older bees. In summary, insulin can improve chemosensory responsiveness in young workers, but also worsens their learning abilities to discriminate odours. The insulin signalling pathway is responsive in young workers, although they are not yet initiating outdoor activities. Our results show strong age-dependent effects of insulin on appetitive behaviour, which uncover differences in insulin signalling regulation throughout the honeybee worker's adulthood.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Insulin effects on honeybee appetitive behaviour

Goñalons

Guiraud

Sanchez

et al. 2016

Journal of Experimental Biology

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“…An individually standardized sucrose response threshold (SRT) protocol is available for non-social insects such as flies (Sudlow et al, 1987;Edgecomb et al, 1987;Scheiner et al, 2004), and social insects such as honeybees (Page et al, 1998). The social condition allows taste perception to be related not only to different aspects of individual biology, but also to those of social biology, as colony organization, genotype, role in the colony, current feeding status, and concentration of solution circulated within the colony, among other factors (Page et al, 1998;Page, 1999, 2000;Pankiw et al, 2001Pankiw et al, , 2004Martinez and Farina, 2008). Ants are advanced social insects like honeybees, and, in addition, present a plethora of life histories and commonly show polymorphism in the worker caste.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sucrose acceptance threshold: a way to measure sugar perception in ants

Falibene

Josens

2011

Insect. Soc.

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Variation in the perception of sweet taste is a well-known phenomenon in the animal kingdom. Wellestablished protocols for measuring sucrose responsiveness in non-social insects and honeybees have made it possible to understand many aspects of their biology and behaviour. Ants are also advanced social insects that present a plethora of life histories with diverse strategies and behaviours; however, a universal paradigm possible to measure this response in different ant species has not yet been developed. Here, we present a protocol for measuring the sucrose acceptance threshold (SAT) under controlled conditions in harnessed ants with different feeding habits. By testing the response to antennal and palp sucrose stimulation and using the occurrence of licking as the response, we developed a non-ambiguous evaluation that allowed easy detection of threshold changes. The results showed that the response to both antennal and palp stimulation varied widely among species. Some species licked in response to antennal stimulation while others did so in response to palp stimulation. Using the appropriate kind of stimulation, we tested the SAT protocol in ants of different genera and ants of the same species with different levels of sugar reserve. The differences detected in both cases imply that the protocol is appropriate for measuring and detecting variations in sugar perception in ants.

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“…In the last few years, many learning-related behaviours have been studied in the context of trophallactic interaction, particularly in bees (Farina et al, 2005;Farina et al, 2007;Gil and De Marco, 2005;Martinez and Farina, 2008). The acquisition of these memories is considered as social learning, defined as individual learning that takes place in a social context (Heyes, 1993;Brown and Laland, 2003;Leadbeater and Chittka, 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Olfactory memory established during trophallaxis affects food search behaviour in ants

Provecho

Josens

2009

Journal of Experimental Biology

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Recently, it has been demonstrated that nectivorous ants can establish an associative memory between sucrose (unconditioned stimulus, US) and odour (conditioned stimulus, CS) at the source during successive foraging cycles, by means of an individual learning paradigm (Dupuy et al., 2006) which leads to long-lasting memory (Josens et al., 2009). In a similar way, during foraging, ants are able to establish memories with other different sensory modalities, such as spatiotemporal (Schatz et al., 1994), visual cues for routing or navigation (Collet et al., 1992;Durier et al., 2003;Cammaerts and Lambert, 2008 SUMMARY Camponotus mus ants can associate sucrose and odour at the source during successive foraging cycles and use this memory to locate the nectar in the absence of other cues. These ants perform conspicuous trophallactic behaviour during recruitment while foraging for nectar. In this work, we studied whether Camponotus mus ants are able to establish this odour-sucrose association in the social context of trophallaxis and we evaluated this memory in another context previously experienced by the ant, as a nectar source. After a single trophallaxis of a scented solution, the receiver ant was tested in a Y-maze without any reward, where two scents were presented: in one arm, the solution scent and in the other, a new scent. Ants consistently chose the arm with the solution scent and stayed longer therein. Trophallaxis duration had no effect on the arm choice or with the time spent in each arm. Workers are able to associate an odour (conditioned stimulus) with the sucrose (unconditioned stimulus) they receive through a social interaction and use this memory as choice criteria during food searching.

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Honeybees modify gustatory responsiveness after receiving nectar from foragers within the hive

Cited by 28 publications

References 27 publications

Insulin effects on honeybee appetitive behaviour

Insulin effects on honeybee appetitive behaviour

Sucrose acceptance threshold: a way to measure sugar perception in ants

Olfactory memory established during trophallaxis affects food search behaviour in ants

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