Measuring individual locomotor rhythms in honey bees, paper wasps and similar sized insects

Abstract

Circadian rhythms in social insects are highly plastic and are modulated by multiple factors. In addition, complex behaviors such as sun-compass orientation and time learning are clearly regulated by the circadian system in these organisms. Despite these unique features of social insect clocks, the mechanisms as well as the functional and evolutionary relevance of these traits remain largely unknown. Here we show a modification of the Drosophila activity monitoring (DAM) system that allowed us to measure locomotor rhythms of the honey bee, Apis mellifera (three variants; gAHB, carnica and caucasica), and two paper wasps (Polistes crinitus and Mischocyttarus phthisicus). A side-by-side comparison of the endogenous period under constant darkness (free-running period) led us to the realization that these social insects exhibit significant deviations from the Earth's 24 h rotational period as well as a large degree of inter-individual variation compared with Drosophila. Experiments at different temperatures, using honey bees as a model, revealed that testing the endogenous rhythm at 35°C, which is the hive's core temperature, results in average periods closer to 24 h compared with 25°C (23.8 h at 35°C versus 22.7 h at 25°C). This finding suggests that the degree of tuning of circadian temperature compensation varies among different organisms. We expect that the commercial availability, cost-effectiveness and integrated nature of this monitoring system will facilitate the growth of the circadian field in these social insects and catalyze our understanding of the mechanisms as well as the functional and evolutionary relevance of circadian rhythms.

Plasticity of Daily Behavioral Rhythms in Foragers and Nurses of the Ant Camponotus rufipes: Influence of Social Context and Feeding Times

“…rufipes , we employed a commercially available locomotor activity recording system (LAM 16; TriKinetics, Waltham, USA). This recording method is well established for Drosophila [54, 55] and was recently adapted to monitor social insects like bees and wasps [53, 56]. One monitor (33 x 12 x 20 cm) allows the simultaneous recording of 32 individuals in an automated way for infinite time.…”

Influence of environmental experience on aversive conditioning in honey bees (Apis mellifera L.)

“…In the numerous works involving honey bee behavior, several notable subspecies differences have been identified (Guzman-Novoa et al 1996;Giannoni-Guzmán et al 2014). While many of these differences have their basis in foraging behaviors (Cakmak et al 2010) or types of resources harvested (Köppler et al 2007), they have been shown to elicit behavioral differences when exposed to non-natural laboratory settings.…”

Neonicotinoids Disrupt Circadian Rhythms and Sleep in Honey Bees

“…To study effects of neonicotinoid pesticides on individual honey bee circadian rhythms and sleep, forager honey bees were captured at hive entrances and maintained in individual infrared activity monitors in the laboratory for up to 8 days with ad libitum access to bee candy (honey and powdered sugar, with or without the addition of thiamethoxam or clothianidin) 19 . Neonicotinoids in the food ranged from 0-140 ng/g (or parts per billion, ppb), which is within the concentration range reported in flower nectar and pollen encountered by foraging bees [20][21][22][23] .…”