scholarly journals Exposure to a biopesticide interferes with sucrose responsiveness and learning in honey bees

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniele Carlesso ◽  
Stefania Smargiassi ◽  
Lara Sassoli ◽  
Federico Cappa ◽  
Rita Cervo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Side Effects ◽  
Honey Bees ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Proboscis Extension Response ◽  
Main Determinant ◽  
Proboscis Extension ◽  
Chemical Pesticides ◽  
Careful Assessment ◽  
Sucrose Responsiveness

AbstractThe entomopathogenic fungus Beauveriabassiana is a widely used biopesticide that is considered as an effective alternative to classical agrochemicals. B. bassiana is thought to be safe for pollinators although little is known about its side-effects on pollinators’ behaviour and cognition. Here, we focused on honey bees and used the proboscis extension response (PER) protocol to assess whether B. bassiana affects individual sucrose responsiveness, non-associative and associative olfactory learning and memory. Fungus-treated bees displayed an enhanced sucrose responsiveness, which could not be explained by metabolic alterations. Strikingly, exposed bees were twice as inconsistent as controls in response to sucrose, showing PER to lower but not to higher sucrose concentrations. Exposed bees habituated less to sucrose and had a better acquisition performance in the conditioning phase than controls. Further, neither mid- nor long-term memory were affected by the fungus. As sucrose responsiveness is the main determinant of division of foraging labour, these changes might unsettle the numerical ratio between the sub-castes of foragers leading to suboptimal foraging. Although the use of biocontrol strategies should be preferred over chemical pesticides, careful assessment of their side-effects is crucial before claiming that they are safe for pollinators.

scholarly journals Social learning of floral odours inside the honeybee hive

2005 ◽  
Vol 272 (1575) ◽  
pp. 1923-1928 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter M Farina ◽  
Christoph Grüter ◽  
Paula C Díaz
Keyword(s):  
Associative Learning ◽  
Food Source ◽  
Waggle Dance ◽  
Food Sources ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Proboscis Extension Response ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
Information Centre ◽  
Proboscis Extension

A honeybee hive serves as an information centre in which communication among bees allows the colony to exploit the most profitable resources in a continuously changing environment. The best-studied communication behaviour in this context is the waggle dance performed by returning foragers, which encodes information about the distance and direction to the food source. It has been suggested that another information cue, floral scents transferred within the hive, is also important for recruitment to food sources, as bee recruits are more strongly attracted to odours previously brought back by foragers in both honeybees and bumble-bees. These observations suggested that honeybees learn the odour from successful foragers before leaving the hive. However, this has never been shown directly and the mechanisms and properties of the learning process remain obscure. We tested the learning and memory of recruited bees in the laboratory using the proboscis extension response (PER) paradigm, and show that recruits indeed learn the nectar odours brought back by foragers by associative learning and retrieve this memory in the PER paradigm. The associative nature of this learning reveals that information was gained during mouth-to-mouth contacts among bees (trophallaxis). Results further suggest that the information is transferred to long-term memory. Associative learning of food odours in a social context may help recruits to find a particular food source faster.

Dopamine interferes with appetitive long-term memory formation in honey bees

2013 ◽  
Vol 106 ◽  
pp. 230-237 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martín Klappenbach ◽  
Laura Kaczer ◽  
Fernando Locatelli
Keyword(s):  
Honey Bees ◽  
Memory Formation ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Term Memory

scholarly journals Honey bees can store and retrieve independent memory traces after complex experiences that combine appetitive and aversive associations

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Klappenbach ◽  
Agustin E Lara ◽  
Fernando F Locatelli
Keyword(s):  
Honey Bees ◽  
Differential Conditioning ◽  
Training Session ◽  
Aversive Conditioning ◽  
Appetitive Conditioning ◽  
Olfactory Conditioning ◽  
Proboscis Extension Response ◽  
Conditioning Paradigm ◽  
Aversive Events ◽  
Proboscis Extension

Real-world experiences do often mix appetitive and aversive events. Understanding the ability of animals to extract, store and use this information is an important issue in neurobiology. We used honey bees as model to study learning and memory after a differential conditioning that combines appetitive and aversive training trials. First of all, we describe an aversive conditioning paradigm that constitutes a clear opposite of the well known appetitive olfactory conditioning of the proboscis extension response. A neutral odour is presented paired with the bitter substance quinine. Aversive memory is evidenced later as an odour-specific impairment in appetitive conditioning. Then we tested the effect of mixing appetitive and aversive conditioning trials distributed along the same training session. Differential conditioning protocols like this were used before to study the ability to discriminate odours, however they were not focused on whether appetitive and aversive memories are formed. We found that after a differential conditioning, honey bees establish independent appetitive and aversive memories that do not interfere with each other during acquisition or storage. Finally, we moved the question forward to retrieval and memory expression to evaluate what happens when appetitive and the aversive learned odours are mixed during test. Interestingly, opposite memories compete in a way that they do not cancel each other out. Honey bees showed the ability to switch from expressing appetitive to aversive memory depending on their satiation level.

scholarly journals Comparing the appetitive learning performance of six European honeybee subspecies in a common apiary

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ricarda Scheiner ◽  
Kayun Lim ◽  
Marina D Meixner ◽  
Martin S Gabel
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Learning Performance ◽  
Proboscis Extension Response ◽  
Sugar Water ◽  
Appetitive Learning ◽  
Proboscis Extension ◽  
Differential Responsiveness ◽  
Honeybee Subspecies ◽  
European Honeybee ◽  
Sucrose Responsiveness

The Western honeybee (Apis mellifera L.) is one of the most widespread insects with numerous subspecies in its native range. In how far adaptation to local habitats has affected the cognitive skills of the different subspecies is an intriguing question which we investigate in this study. Naturally mated queens of the following five subspecies from different parts of Europe were transferred to Southern Germany: A. m. iberiensis from Portugal, A. m. mellifera from Belgium, A. m. macedonica from Greece, A.m. ligustica from Italy and A. m. ruttneri from Malta. We also included the local subspecies A.m. carnica in our study. New colonies were built up in a common apiary where the respective queens were introduced. Worker offspring from the different subspecies was compared in classical olfactory learning performance using the proboscis extension response. Prior to conditioning we measured individual sucrose responsiveness to investigate whether possible differences in learning performances were due to a differential responsiveness to the sugar water reward. Most subspecies did not differ in their appetitive learning performance. However, foragers of the Iberian honeybee, A. m. iberiensis, performed significantly more poorly, despite having a similar sucrose responsiveness. We discuss possible causes for the low cognitive performance of the Iberian honeybees, which may have been shaped by adaptation to local habitat.

scholarly journals Pollen reinforces learning in honey bee pollen foragers but not in nectar foragers

2020 ◽  
Vol 223 (22) ◽  
pp. jeb230250
Author(s):  
Denise Nery ◽  
Emilia Moreno ◽  
Andrés Arenas
Keyword(s):  
Honey Bees ◽  
Physiological Mechanism ◽  
Simultaneous Presentation ◽  
Division Of Labour ◽  
Proboscis Extension Response ◽  
Reinforced Learning ◽  
Proboscis Extension ◽  
Foraging Specialization ◽  
Better Than

ABSTRACTSearching for reward motivates and drives behaviour. In honey bees Apis mellifera, specialized pollen foragers are attracted to and learn odours with pollen. However, the role of pollen as a reward remains poorly understood. Unlike nectar, pollen is not ingested during collection. We hypothesized that pollen (but not nectar) foragers could learn pollen by sole antennal or tarsal stimulation. Then, we tested how pairing of pollen (either hand- or bee-collected) and a neutral odour during a pre-conditioning affects performance of both pollen and nectar foragers during the classical conditioning of the proboscis extension response. Secondly, we tested whether nectar and pollen foragers perceive the simultaneous presentation of pollen (on the tarsi) and sugar (on the antennae) as a better reinforcement than sucrose alone. Finally, we searched for differences in learning of the pollen and nectar foragers when they were prevented from ingesting the reward during the conditioning. Differences in pollen-reinforced learning correlate with division of labour between pollen and nectar foragers. Results show that pollen foragers performed better than nectar foragers during the conditioning phase after being pre-conditioned with pollen. Pollen foragers also performed better than nectar foragers in both the acquisition and extinction phases of the conditioning, when reinforced with the dual reward. Consistently, pollen foragers showed improved abilities to learn cues reinforced without sugar ingestion. We discussed that differences in how pollen and nectar foragers respond to a cue associated with pollen greatly contribute to the physiological mechanism that underlies foraging specialization in the honeybee.

scholarly journals Do Honey Bees (Apis mellifera) Form Cognitive Representations of Unconditioned Stimuli?

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kiri Li N. Stauch ◽  
Harrington Wells ◽  
Charles I. Abramson
Keyword(s):  
Apis Mellifera ◽  
Honey Bees ◽  
Experimental Designs ◽  
Not Given ◽  
Cognitive Representation ◽  
Proboscis Extension Response ◽  
Cognitive Representations ◽  
Avoidance Behaviors ◽  
The Us ◽  
Proboscis Extension

Previous research looking at expectancy in animals has used various experimental designs focusing on appetitive and avoidance behaviors. In this study, honey bees (Apis mellifera) were tested ina series of three proboscis extension response (PER) experiments to determine to what degree honey bees’ form a cognitive-representation of an unconditioned stimulus (US). Tthe first experiment, bees were presented with either a 2 sec. sucrose US or 2 sec. honey US appetitive reward and the proboscis-extension duration was measured under each scenario. The PER duration was longer for the honey US even though each US was presented for just 2 sec. Honey bees in the second experiment were tested during extinction trials on a conditioned stimulus (CS) of cinnamon or lavender that was paired with either the sucrose US or honey US in the acquisition trials. The proportion of bees showing the PER response to the CS was recorded for each extinction trial for each US scenario, as was the duration of the proboscis extension for each bee. Neither measure differed between the honey US and sucrose US scenarios, In experiment three, bees were presented with a cinnamon or lavender CS paired with either honey US or sucrose US in a set of acquisition trials, but here the US was not given until after the proboscis was retracted. The PER duration after the CS, and again subsequent after the US, were recorded. While the PER duration after the US was longer for honey, the PER duration after the CS did not differ between honey US and sucrose US.

scholarly journals Comparing the Appetitive Learning Performance of Six European Honeybee Subspecies in a Common Apiary

Insects ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (9) ◽  
pp. 768
Author(s):  
Ricarda Scheiner ◽  
Kayun Lim ◽  
Marina D. Meixner ◽  
Martin S. Gabel
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Poor Performance ◽  
Learning Performance ◽  
Proboscis Extension Response ◽  
Sugar Water ◽  
Appetitive Learning ◽  
Proboscis Extension ◽  
Differential Responsiveness ◽  
Honeybee Subspecies ◽  
Sucrose Responsiveness

The Western honeybee (Apis mellifera L.) is one of the most widespread insects with numerous subspecies in its native range. How far adaptation to local habitats has affected the cognitive skills of the different subspecies is an intriguing question that we investigate in this study. Naturally mated queens of the following five subspecies from different parts of Europe were transferred to Southern Germany: A. m. iberiensis from Portugal, A. m. mellifera from Belgium, A. m. macedonica from Greece, A. m. ligustica from Italy, and A. m. ruttneri from Malta. We also included the local subspecies A. m. carnica in our study. New colonies were built up in a common apiary where the respective queens were introduced. Worker offspring from the different subspecies were compared in classical olfactory learning performance using the proboscis extension response. Prior to conditioning, we measured individual sucrose responsiveness to investigate whether possible differences in learning performances were due to differential responsiveness to the sugar water reward. Most subspecies did not differ in their appetitive learning performance. However, foragers of the Iberian honeybee, A. m. iberiensis, performed significantly more poorly, despite having a similar sucrose responsiveness. We discuss possible causes for the poor performance of the Iberian honeybees, which may have been shaped by adaptation to the local habitat.

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