A novel assay to evaluate olfactory modulation of honeybee aggression

Burg, Nicole M.D. van der; Lavidis, Nickolas A.; Claudianos, Charles; Reinhard, Judith

doi:10.1007/s13592-013-0263-0

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…A fourth assay, recently introduced by our laboratory, measures the aggressiveness of honeybees confronted with a dummy rotated by a step motor (Fig. 4D) (Nouvian et al, 2015), based on a previous version in which the dummy was moved manually (van der Burg et al, 2014). We also added a feather that touched the bees during dummy rotation, which reliably induces a stinging response.…”

Section: Individual Assaysmentioning

confidence: 99%

The defensive response of the honeybee Apis mellifera

Nouvian

Reinhard

Giurfa

2016

Journal of Experimental Biology

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105

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Honeybees (Apis mellifera) are insects living in colonies with a complex social organization. Their nest contains food stores in the form of honey and pollen, as well as the brood, the queen and the bees themselves. These resources have to be defended against a wide range of predators and parasites, a task that is performed by specialized workers, called guard bees. Guards tune their response to both the nature of the threat and the environmental conditions, in order to achieve an efficient trade-off between defence and loss of foraging workforce. By releasing alarm pheromones, they are able to recruit other bees to help them handle large predators. These chemicals trigger both rapid and longer-term changes in the behaviour of nearby bees, thus priming them for defence. Here, we review our current understanding on how this sequence of events is performed and regulated depending on a variety of factors that are both extrinsic and intrinsic to the colony. We present our current knowledge on the neural bases of honeybee aggression and highlight research avenues for future studies in this area. We present a brief overview of the techniques used to study honeybee aggression, and discuss how these could be used to gain further insights into the mechanisms of this behaviour.

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Section: Individual Assaysmentioning

confidence: 99%

The defensive response of the honeybee Apis mellifera

Nouvian

Reinhard

Giurfa

2016

Journal of Experimental Biology

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105

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“…A non-nestmate conspecific mature major worker collected from a colony not adjacent to the colony of the focal worker was used as an intruder stimulus and was gently placed in the dish after removing a small segment of one pretarsus to distinguish focal ants. Behavioural categories were defined to characterize the full range of O. smaragdina aggressive actions [32,35,36]. Behavioural responses directed towards non-nestmates were quantified for 5 min.…”

Section: (B) Aggression Assaysmentioning

confidence: 99%

Polymorphism and division of labour in a socially complex ant: neuromodulation of aggression in the Australian weaver ant,Oecophylla smaragdina

et al. 2015

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Complex social structure in eusocial insects can involve worker morphological and behavioural differentiation. Neuroanatomical variation may underscore worker division of labour, but the regulatory mechanisms of size-based task specialization in polymorphic species are unknown. The Australian weaver ant, Oecophylla smaragdina, exhibits worker polyphenism: larger major workers aggressively defend arboreal territories, whereas smaller minors nurse brood. Here, we demonstrate that octopamine (OA) modulates worker size-related aggression in O. smaragdina. We found that the brains of majors had significantly higher titres of OA than those of minors and that OA was positively and specifically correlated with the frequency of aggressive responses to non-nestmates, a key component of territorial defence. Pharmacological manipulations that effectively switched OA action in major and minor worker brains reversed levels of aggression characteristic of each worker size class. Results suggest that altering OA action is sufficient to produce differences in aggression characteristic of size-related social roles. Neuromodulators therefore may generate variation in responsiveness to task-related stimuli associated with worker size differentiation and collateral behavioural specializations, a significant component of division of labour in complex social systems.

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“…This is the first study to evaluate the behavioral effects of smoke using a lab-based assay of aggression (see ref. 37 for other assays of “calming” scents). The results show a robust effect of smoke.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Altering social cue perception impacts honey bee aggression with minimal impacts on aggression-related brain gene expression

Harrison

Palmer

Rittschof

2019

Sci Rep

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Gene expression changes resulting from social interactions may give rise to long term behavioral change, or simply reflect the activity of neural circuitry associated with behavioral expression. In honey bees, social cues broadly modulate aggressive behavior and brain gene expression. Previous studies suggest that expression changes are limited to contexts in which social cues give rise to stable, relatively long-term changes in behavior. Here we use a traditional beekeeping approach that inhibits aggression, smoke exposure, to deprive individuals of aggression-inducing olfactory cues and evaluate whether behavioral changes occur in absence of expression variation in a set of four biomarker genes (drat, cyp6g1/2, GB53860, inos) associated with aggression in previous studies. We also evaluate two markers of a brain hypoxic response (hif1α, hsf) to determine whether smoke induces molecular changes at all. We find that bees with blocked sensory perception as a result of smoke exposure show a strong, temporary inhibition of aggression relative to bees allowed to perceive normal social cues. However, blocking sensory perception had minimal impacts on aggression-relevant gene expression, althought it did induce a hypoxic molecular response in the brain. Results suggest that certain genes differentiate social cue-induced changes in aggression from long-term modulation of this phenotype.

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A novel assay to evaluate olfactory modulation of honeybee aggression

Cited by 5 publications

References 36 publications

The defensive response of the honeybee Apis mellifera

The defensive response of the honeybee Apis mellifera

Polymorphism and division of labour in a socially complex ant: neuromodulation of aggression in the Australian weaver ant,Oecophylla smaragdina

Altering social cue perception impacts honey bee aggression with minimal impacts on aggression-related brain gene expression

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