Intra-colonial variation of the sting extension response in the honey bee Apis mellifera

Lenoir, Jean-Christophe; Laloi, David; Dechaume-Moncharmont, François-Xavier; Solignac, Michel; Pham, Minihlan

doi:10.1007/s00040-005-0838-5

Cited by 24 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…In addition, the propensity to sting is regulated by both genetic factors and age, with older bees being more likely to sting (Giray et al, 2000). Indeed, a number of studies have also demonstrated a patrilineal effect, and have mapped quantitative trait loci that are associated with guarding, stinging or both behaviours (Arechavaleta-Velasco and Hunt, 2004;Breed et al, 2004b;Guzman-Novoa et al, 2002;Hunt, 2007;Hunt et al, 1998;Lenoir et al, 2006;Robinson and Page, 1988;. More recently, a transcriptional 'signature' of aggression has been identified in the bee brain (Alaux et al, 2009;Chandrasekaran et al, 2011).…”

Section: Division Of Labour During Colony Defencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…These assays can be used to measure a threshold voltage at which the bees start responding (Balderrama et al, 2002;Kolmes and Njehu, 1990;Núñez et al, 1998;Paxton et al, 1994). Alternatively, at a constant voltage, the frequency of response (Núñez et al, 1983), degree of response (Lenoir et al, 2006) or time needed for the bee to respond can be recorded (UribeRubio et al, 2008). Because current, not electrical tension, has physiological impacts, improved versions of these assays should benefit from technological progress and control this parameter rather than voltage.…”

Section: Individual Assaysmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The defensive response of the honeybee Apis mellifera

Nouvian

Reinhard

Giurfa

2016

Journal of Experimental Biology

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: Division Of Labour During Colony Defencementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Individual Assaysmentioning

confidence: 99%

The defensive response of the honeybee Apis mellifera

Nouvian

Reinhard

Giurfa

2016

Journal of Experimental Biology

105

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Among the numerous microsatellites available (Solignac et al, 2003), five loci provided sufficient genetic variability to classify workers into distinct patrilines within the studied colonies (A14, A29, A76, A107 and B124; Estoup et al, 1994). The methods used for extraction, PCR amplification and determination of alleles are detailed in Lenoir et al (2006). Patrilines are easily identified due to haplodiploid determination of sex (Estoup et al, 1994).…”

Section: Determination Of Patrilinesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For instance, genetically diverse colonies exhibit higher productivity and greater foraging effort than genetically uniform colonies (Mattila and Seeley, 2007), which is linked to increased foragingrelated communication (Mattila et al, 2008). According to the threshold model of division of labour (Robinson and Page, 1989;Beshers and Fewell, 2001), the benefits of genetic di-versity come from genetically determined differences in response thresholds of workers, as suggested for foraging behaviour (Cox and Myerscough, 2003), thermoregulation (Jones et al, 2004) and defense (Lenoir et al, 2006). In a study of a strain artificially selected for pollen-storing, Page et al (1998) showed interesting relationships between the genotype of workers, their responses to water and sucrose, and their foraging behaviour, suggesting that varying response thresholds can lead to a division of labour.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Patriline-level variability in olfactory learning in the honey bee

Laloi

Pham-Delègue

2010

Apidologie

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-Genetically determined differences among honeybee workers are known to contribute to task specialisation. To investigate the genetic component of olfactory learning we used proboscis extension conditioning to record individual performance, and a patriline-level analysis to separate the variance in learning performance into its different components. We found that the among-patriline within-colony component (solely genetic) explained 11.2% of the variance in acquisition performance and 6.5% of the variance in resistance to extinction. While environmental effects appeared to be the main source of variation, our results confirm that olfactory learning has a significant genetic basis. If colonies benefit from genetic differences among workers in task expression thresholds, colonies might also benefit from genetic differences in cognitive performance among workers by influencing task performance. olfactory learning / genetic determinism / patrilines / heritability / honeybee

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“…Studies in the honeybee suggest that genotypic variation in tasks may involve a few major loci (Hunt et al 1995;Page et al 2000;Rüppell et al 2004). In many species, a genetic component in response thresholds has also been demonstrated with individuals from different patrilines or matrilines having different propensities to perform certain tasks (Costa and Ross 2003;Frumhoff and Baker 1988;Jones et al 2004;Julian and Cahan 1999;Oldroyd et al 1994;Snyder 1992;Lenoir et al 2006). However, a better understanding of division of labour requires determining how genotypic variation relates to differences in intracolony differences in response thresholds.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Task-dependent influence of genetic architecture and mating frequency on division of labour in social insect societies

Tarapore

Floreano

Keller

2009

Behav Ecol Sociobiol

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Division of labour is one of the most prominent features of social insects. The efficient allocation of individuals to different tasks requires dynamic adjustment in response to environmental perturbations. Theoretical models suggest that the colony-level flexibility in responding to external changes and internal perturbation may depend on the within-colony genetic diversity, which is affected by the number of breeding individuals. However, these models have not considered the genetic architecture underlying the propensity of workers to perform the various tasks. Here, we investigated how both within-colony genetic variability (stemming from variation in the number of matings by queens) and the number of genes influencing the stimulus (threshold) for a given task at which workers begin to perform that task jointly influence task allocation efficiency. We used a numerical agent-based model to investigate the situation where workers had to perform either a regulatory task or a foraging task. One hundred generations of artificial selection in populations consisting of 500 colonies revealed that an increased number of matings always improved colony performance, whatever the number of loci encoding the thresholds of the regulatory and foraging tasks. However, the beneficial effect of additional matings was particularly important when the genetic architecture of queens comprised one or a few genes for the foraging task's threshold. By contrast, a higher number of genes encoding the foraging task reduced colony performance with the detrimental effect being stronger when queens had mated with several males. Finally, the number of genes encoding the threshold for the regulatory task only had a minor effect on colony performance. Overall, our numerical experiments support the importance of mating frequency on efficiency of division of labour and also reveal complex interactions between the number of matings and genetic architecture.

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Intra-colonial variation of the sting extension response in the honey bee Apis mellifera

Cited by 24 publications

References 52 publications

The defensive response of the honeybee Apis mellifera

The defensive response of the honeybee Apis mellifera

Patriline-level variability in olfactory learning in the honey bee

Task-dependent influence of genetic architecture and mating frequency on division of labour in social insect societies

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