TY  - JOUR
A1  - Behrends, Andreas
A1  - Scheiner, Ricarda
T1  - Octopamine improves learning in newly emerged bees but not in old
 foragers
JF  - JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL BIOLOGY
N2  - Honey bees (Apis mellifera) are well known for their excellent learning abilities. Although most age groups learn quickly to associate an odor with a sucrose reward, newly emerged bees and old foragers often perform poorly. For a long time, the reason for the poor learning performance of these age groups was unclear. We show that reduced sensitivity for sucrose is the cause for poor associative learning in newly emerged bees but not in old foragers. By increasing the sensitivity for sucrose through octopamine, we selectively improved the learning performance of insensitive newly emerged bees. Interestingly, the learning performance of foragers experiencing the same treatment remained low, despite the observed increase in sensitivity for the reward. We thus demonstrate that increasing sensitivity for the reward can improve the associative learning performance of bees when they are young but not when they had foraged for a long time. Importantly, octopamine can have very different effects on bees, depending on their initial sensory sensitivity. These differential effects of octopamine have important consequences for interpreting the action of biogenic amines on insect behavior.
KW  - honey bee
KW  - PER
KW  - olfactory conditioning
KW  - ageing
KW  - sucrose responsiveness
Y1  - 2012
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.063297
SN  - 0022-0949
VL  - 215
IS  - 7
SP  - 1076
EP  - 1083
PB  - COMPANY OF BIOLOGISTS LTD
CY  - CAMBRIDGE
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Scheiner, Ricarda
T1  - Birth weight and sucrose responsiveness predict cognitive skills of honeybee foragers
JF  - Animal behaviour
N2  - Honeybees, Apis mellifera, can differ considerably in their birth weights but the consequences of these weight differences for behaviour are unknown. I investigated how these birth weight differences affected their cognitive skills when the bees reached foraging age. Individual sucrose responsiveness measured by the proboscis extension response is a strong determinant of appetitive olfactory learning performance in honeybees. Most of the observed learning differences between individuals or between genetic bee strains correlate with differences in their sucrose responsiveness. My second aim was therefore to investigate whether the sucrose responsiveness of newly emerged bees could predict the learning behaviour of the bees 3 weeks later. Both birth weight and sucrose responsiveness measured at emergence could predict olfactory learning scores as demonstrated by significant positive correlations. Heavy bees and bees with high sucrose responsiveness later learned better than lighter individuals or bees with lower responsiveness to sucrose at emergence. These results demonstrate for the first time a fundamental relationship between sensory responsiveness and morphology at emergence and later cognitive skills in insects. Because sensory responsiveness is closely linked to division of labour in honeybees, differences in weight and sucrose responsiveness at emergence might be involved in regulating division of labour.
KW  - Apis mellifera
KW  - birth weight
KW  - division of labour
KW  - foraging
KW  - honeybee
KW  - learning
KW  - maternal provisioning
KW  - sucrose responsiveness
Y1  - 2012
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2012.05.011
SN  - 0003-3472
VL  - 84
IS  - 2
SP  - 305
EP  - 308
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - London
ER  -