Dataset Information

Colony-level non-associative plasticity of alarm responses in the stingless honey bee, Tetragonisca angustula.

ABSTRACT: In ants, bees, and other social Hymenoptera alarm pheromones are widely employed to coordinate colony nest defense. In that context, alarm pheromones elicit innate species-specific defensive behaviors. Therefore, in terms of classical conditioning, an alarm pheromone could act as an unconditioned stimulus (US). Here we test this hypothesis by establishing whether repeated exposure to alarm pheromone in different testing contexts modifies the alarm response. We evaluate colony level alarm responses in the stingless bee, Tetragonisca angustula, which has a morphologically distinct guard caste. First, we describe the overall topology of defense behaviors in the presence of an alarm pheromone. Second, we show that repeated, regular exposure to synthetic alarm pheromone reduces different components of the alarm response, and memory of that exposure decays over time. This observed decrease followed by recovery occurs over different time frames and is consistent with behavioral habituation. We further tested whether the alarm pheromone can act as a US to classically condition guards to modify their defense behaviors in the presence of a novel (conditioned) stimulus (CS). We found no consistent changes in the response to the CS. Our study demonstrates the possibility that colony-level alarm responses can be adaptively modified by experience in response to changing environmental threats. Further studies are now needed to reveal the extent of these habituation-like responses in regard to other pheromones, the potential mechanisms that underlie this phenomenon, and the range of adaptive contexts in which they function at the colony level.

SUBMITTER: Jernigan CM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6373452 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Colony-level non-associative plasticity of alarm responses in the stingless honey bee, Tetragonisca angustula.

Jernigan Christopher M CM Birgiolas Justas J McHugh Cora C Roubik David W DW Wcislo William T WT Smith Brian H BH

Behavioral ecology and sociobiology 20180315

In ants, bees, and other social Hymenoptera alarm pheromones are widely employed to coordinate colony nest defense. In that context, alarm pheromones elicit innate species-specific defensive behaviors. Therefore, in terms of classical conditioning, an alarm pheromone could act as an unconditioned stimulus (US). Here we test this hypothesis by establishing whether repeated exposure to alarm pheromone in different testing contexts modifies the alarm response. We evaluate colony level alarm respons ...[more]

PMID: 30774186

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Project description:Honey bee (Apis mellifera) colonies continue to experience high annual losses that remain poorly explained. Numerous interacting factors have been linked to colony declines. Understanding the pathways linking pathophysiology with symptoms is an important step in understanding the mechanisms of disease. In this study we examined the specific pathologies associated with honey bees collected from colonies suffering from Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) and compared these with bees collected from apparently healthy colonies. We identified a set of pathological physical characteristics that occurred at different rates in CCD diagnosed colonies prior to their collapse: rectum distension, Malpighian tubule iridescence, fecal matter consistency, rectal enteroliths (hard concretions), and venom sac color. The multiple differences in rectum symptomology in bees from CCD apiaries and colonies suggest effected bees had trouble regulating water. To ensure that pathologies we found associated with CCD were indeed pathologies and not due to normal changes in physical appearances that occur as an adult bee ages (CCD colonies are assumed to be composed mostly of young bees), we documented the changes in bees of different ages taken from healthy colonies. We found that young bees had much greater incidences of white nodules than older cohorts. Prevalent in newly-emerged bees, these white nodules or cellular encapsulations indicate an active immune response. Comparing the two sets of characteristics, we determined a subset of pathologies that reliably predict CCD status rather than bee age (fecal matter consistency, rectal distension size, rectal enteroliths and Malpighian tubule iridescence) and that may serve as biomarkers for colony health. In addition, these pathologies suggest that CCD bees are experiencing disrupted excretory physiology. Our identification of these symptoms is an important first step in understanding the physiological pathways that underlie CCD and factors impacting bee health.

Dataset Information

Colony-level non-associative plasticity of alarm responses in the stingless honey bee, Tetragonisca angustula.

Publications

Colony-level non-associative plasticity of alarm responses in the stingless honey bee, Tetragonisca angustula.

Similar Datasets

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