Young honeybees show learned preferences after experiencing adulterated pollen.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Lajad R
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8640054 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:BackgroundSmoking rates are significantly higher among young people experiencing homelessness than in the general population. Despite a willingness to quit, homeless youth have little success in doing so on their own, and existing cessation resources tailored to this population are lacking. Homeless youth generally enjoy the camaraderie and peer support that group-based programs offer, but continuous in-person support during a quit attempt can be prohibitively expensive.ObjectiveThis study aimed to assess the feasibility and acceptability of an automated text messaging intervention (TMI) as an adjunct to group-based cessation counseling and provision of nicotine patches to help homeless youth quit smoking. This paper outlines the lessons learned from the implementation of the TMI intervention.MethodsHomeless youth smokers aged 18 to 25 years who were interested in quitting (n=77) were recruited from drop-in centers serving homeless youth in the Los Angeles area. In this pilot randomized controlled trial, all participants received a group-based cessation counseling session and nicotine patches, with 52% (40/77) randomly assigned to receive 6 weeks of text messages to provide additional support for their quit attempt. Participants received text messages on their own phone rather than receiving a study-issued phone for the TMI. We analyzed baseline and follow-up survey data as well as back-end data from the messaging platform to gauge the acceptability and feasibility of the TMI among the 40 participants who received it.ResultsParticipants had widespread (smart)phone ownership-16.4% (36/219) were ineligible for study participation because they did not have a phone that could receive text messages. Participants experienced interruptions in their phone use (eg, 44% [16/36] changed phone numbers during the follow-up period) but reported being able to receive the majority of messages. These survey results were corroborated by back-end data (from the program used to administer the TMI) showing a message delivery rate of about 95%. Participant feedback points to the importance of carefully crafting text messages, which led to high (typically above 70%) approval of most text messaging components of the intervention. Qualitative feedback indicated that participants enjoyed the group counseling session that preceded the TMI and suggested including more such group elements into the intervention.ConclusionsThe TMI was well accepted and feasible to support smoking cessation among homeless youth. Given high rates of smartphone ownership, the next generation of phone-based smoking cessation interventions for this population should consider using approaches beyond text messages and focus on finding ways to develop effective approaches to include group interaction using remote implementation. Given overall resource constraints and in particular the exigencies of the currently ongoing COVID-19 epidemic, phone-based interventions are a promising approach to support homeless youth, a population urgently in need of effective smoking cessation interventions.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov NCT03874585; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03874585.International registered report identifier (irrid)RR2-10.1186/s13722-020-00187-6.
| S-EPMC8050749 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Bees receive nectar and pollen as reward for pollinating plants. Pollen of different plant species varies widely in nutritional composition. In order to select pollen of appropriate nutritional quality, bees would benefit if they could distinguish different pollen types. Whether they rely on visual, olfactory and/or chemotactile cues to distinguish between different pollen types, has however been little studied. In this study, we examined whether and how Apis mellifera workers differentiate between almond and apple pollen. We used differential proboscis extension response conditioning with olfactory and chemotactile stimulation, in light and darkness, and in summer and winter bees. We found that honeybees were only able to differentiate between different pollen types, when they could use both chemotactile and olfactory cues. Visual cues further improved learning performance. Summer bees learned faster than winter bees. Our results thus highlight the importance of multisensory information for pollen discrimination.
| S-EPMC6221266 | biostudies-other
Project description:The honeybee is being developed as a simple invertebrate model for alcohol-related studies. To date, several effects of ethanol consumption have been demonstrated in honeybees, but the tolerance effect, one of the hallmarks of alcohol overuse, has never been shown. Here, we confirm our hypothesis that the response to ethanol (in terms of motor impairment) is lower in bees that have previously experienced intoxication than in bees encountering ethanol for the first time, indicating that the chronic tolerance effect occurs in honeybees. Furthermore, we investigated the basis of this effect and found that it likely results from conditioned compensatory responses to cues associated with ethanol delivery. Our findings significantly improve our understanding of the suitability of honeybees as models for alcoholism-related research and underline the first and foremost function of all conditioned reactions - their adaptive value.
| S-EPMC5992188 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Lateralized behaviour in social insects is of biological significance, as certain lateral biases appear to have emerged in tandem with eusociality, and thus can provide insights into its functioning. Here, I investigate behavioural asymmetry in an ecologically important social insect, the honeybee Apis mellifera. Experiments show that foraging bees exhibit a strong rightward turning bias, accompanied by reduced decision latency when entering open cavities, yet demonstrate no directional preference in sequential choice-mazes. A rightward exploration preference within unknown cavities is consistent with current information relating to the physiology of this species, with workers being better equipped for sensory investigation and threat response using their right antenna and eye. Furthermore, when applied to collective nest-choice scenarios, a similar bias would promote the uniform assessment of nest cavities, and consistency in quorum attainment. Conversely, such laterality appears to provide no immediate advantage in enclosed decision-maze systems, where thigmotaxis instead predominates. As such, my results show that directional biases in A. mellifera are extent, yet context-dependent, thus providing a simple and optimized response to varied social challenges.
| S-EPMC6405468 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Elongated landscape features like forest edges, rivers, roads or boundaries of fields are particularly salient landmarks for navigating animals. Here, we ask how honeybees learn such structures and how they are used during their homing flights after being released at an unexpected location (catch-and-release paradigm). The experiments were performed in two landscapes that differed with respect to their overall structure: a rather feature-less landscape, and one rich in close and far distant landmarks. We tested three different forms of learning: learning during orientation flights, learning during training to a feeding site, and learning during homing flights after release at an unexpected site within the explored area. We found that bees use elongated ground structures, e.g., a field boundary separating two pastures close to the hive (Experiment 1), an irrigation channel (Experiment 2), a hedgerow along which the bees were trained (Experiment 3), a gravel road close to the hive and the feeder (Experiment 4), a path along an irrigation channel with its vegetation close to the feeder (Experiment 5) and a gravel road along which bees performed their homing flights (Experiment 6). Discrimination and generalization between the learned linear landmarks and similar ones in the test area depend on their object properties (irrigation channel, gravel road, hedgerow) and their compass orientation. We conclude that elongated ground structures are embedded into multiple landscape features indicating that memory of these linear structures is one component of bee navigation. Elongated structures interact and compete with other references. Object identification is an important part of this process. The objects are characterized not only by their appearance but also by their alignment in the compass. Their salience is highest if both components are close to what had been learned. High similarity in appearance can compensate for (partial) compass misalignment, and vice versa.
| S-EPMC6341004 | biostudies-literature
Project description:In the present study, we investigated DNA barcoding effectiveness to characterize honeybee pollen pellets, a food supplement largely used for human nutrition due to its therapeutic properties. We collected pollen pellets using modified beehives placed in three zones within an alpine protected area (Grigna Settentrionale Regional Park, Italy). A DNA barcoding reference database, including rbcL and trnH-psbA sequences from 693 plant species (104 sequenced in this study) was assembled. The database was used to identify pollen collected from the hives. Fifty-two plant species were identified at the molecular level. Results suggested rbcL alone could not distinguish among congeneric plants; however, psbA-trnH identified most of the pollen samples at the species level. Substantial variability in pollen composition was observed between the highest elevation locality (Alpe Moconodeno), characterized by arid grasslands and a rocky substrate, and the other two sites (Cornisella and Ortanella) at lower altitudes. Pollen from Ortanella and Cornisella showed the presence of typical deciduous forest species; however in samples collected at Ortanella, pollen of the invasive Lonicera japonica, and the ornamental Pelargonium x hortorum were observed. Our results indicated pollen composition was largely influenced by floristic local biodiversity, plant phenology, and the presence of alien flowering species. Therefore, pollen molecular characterization based on DNA barcoding might serve useful to beekeepers in obtaining honeybee products with specific nutritional or therapeutic characteristics desired by food market demands.
| S-EPMC4190116 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Honeybees are the most widespread managed pollinators of our food crops, and a crucial part of their well-being is a suitable diet. Yet, we do not know how they choose flowers to collect nectar or pollen from. Here we studied forty-three honeybee colonies in six apiaries over a summer, identifying the floral origins of honey and hive-stored pollen samples by DNA-metabarcoding. We recorded the available flowering plants and analyzed the specialized metabolites in honey. Overall, we find that honeybees use mostly the same plants for both nectar and pollen, yet per colony less than half of the plant genera are used for both nectar and pollen at a time. Across samples, on average fewer plant genera were used for pollen, but the composition was more variable among samples, suggesting higher selectivity for pollen sources. Of the available flowering plants, honeybees used only a fraction for either nectar or pollen foraging. The time of summer guided the plant choices the most, and the location impacted both the plants selected and the specialized metabolite composition in honey. Thus, honeybees are selective for both nectar and pollen, implicating a need of a wide variety of floral resources to choose an optimal diet from.
| S-EPMC10484984 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Plants produce flowers with complex visual and olfactory signals, but we know relatively little about the way that signals such as floral scents have evolved. One important factor that may direct the evolution of floral signals is a pollinator's ability to learn. When animals learn to associate two similar signals with different outcomes, biases in their responses to new signals can be formed. Here, we investigated whether or not pollinators develop learned biases towards floral scents that depend on nectar reward quality by training restrained honeybees to learn to associate two similar odour signals with different outcomes using a classical conditioning assay. Honeybees developed learned biases towards odours as a result of differential conditioning, and the extent to which an olfactory bias could be produced depended upon the difference in the quality of the nectar rewards experienced during conditioning. Our results suggest that differences in reward quality offered by flowers influence odour recognition by pollinators, which in turn could influence the evolution of floral scents in natural populations of co-flowering plants.
| S-EPMC2686651 | biostudies-literature
Project description:With the availability of various plants in bloom simultaneously, honey bees prefer to collect some pollen types over others. To better understand pollen's role as a reward for workers, we compared the digestibility and nutritional value of two pollen diets, namely, pear (Pyrus bretschneideri Rehd.) and apricot (Armeniaca sibirica L.). We investigated the visits, pollen consumption, and pollen extraction efficiency of caged Apis mellifera workers. Newly emerged workers were reared, and the effects of two pollen diets on their physiological status (the development of hypopharyngeal glands and ovaries) were compared. The choice-test experiments indicated a significant preference of A. mellifera workers for apricot pollen diets over pear pollen diets (number of bees landing, 29.5 ± 8.11 and 9.25 ± 5.10, p < 0.001 and pollen consumption, 0.052 ± 0.026 g/day and 0.033 ± 0.013 g/day, p < 0.05). Both pollen diets had comparable extraction efficiencies (67.63% for pear pollen and 67.73% for apricot pollen). Caged workers fed different pollen diets also exhibited similar ovarian development (p > 0.05). However, workers fed apricot pollen had significantly larger hypopharyngeal glands than those fed pear pollen (p < 0.001). Our results indicated that the benefits conferred to honey bees by different pollen diets may influence their foraging preference.
| S-EPMC7913020 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Children with atopic eczema are known to experience seasonal variations in disease severity, with winter being the season in which severity generally increases. There is a lack of knowledge about the subgroup of children that experiences increased severity in spring and summer months. We aimed to investigate which phenotype characteristics best describe children flaring in the pollen season. A retrospective database analysis was conducted, including 110 children with difficult-to-treat atopic eczema aged 0-17 years. Relevant outcome parameters were extracted from medical records. In our population, 36% (n = 40/110) of children reported flares of atopic eczema in the pollen season. These children were more often sensitized to one or more types of pollen (73% [n = 29/40] vs. 28% [n = 10/36], p < 0.0001) and had more patient-reported hay fever (70% [n = 28/40] vs. 19% [n = 7/36], p < 0.0001), compared with children who do not flare in the pollen season. Moreover, children flaring in the pollen season more often had a dark skin type (78% [n = 31/40] vs. 44% [n = 16/36], p = 0.003). Based on stepwise multivariable analyses, children flaring in the pollen season were characterized by the combination of younger age, hay fever, and dark skin type (C-statistic: 0.86). In conclusion, patient-reported flares in spring and summer are experienced by one-third of children with difficult-to-treat atopic eczema. This phenotype can be characterized as young children having hay fever and a dark skin type and can be identified based on clinical parameters alone without the need to perform immunoglobulin E blood testing or skin prick tests.
| S-EPMC8048828 | biostudies-literature