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The Scent of the Waggle Dance

The waggle dance of honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) foragers communicates to nest mates the location of a profitable food source. We used solid-phase microextraction and gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry to show that waggle-dancing bees produce and release two alkanes, tricosane and pe...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Thom, Corinna, Gilley, David C, Hooper, Judith, Esch, Harald E
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2007
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1994260/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17713987
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.0050228
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author Thom, Corinna
Gilley, David C
Hooper, Judith
Esch, Harald E
author_facet Thom, Corinna
Gilley, David C
Hooper, Judith
Esch, Harald E
author_sort Thom, Corinna
collection PubMed
description The waggle dance of honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) foragers communicates to nest mates the location of a profitable food source. We used solid-phase microextraction and gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry to show that waggle-dancing bees produce and release two alkanes, tricosane and pentacosane, and two alkenes, Z-(9)-tricosene and Z-(9)-pentacosene, onto their abdomens and into the air. Nondancing foragers returning from the same food source produce these substances in only minute quantities. Injection of the scent significantly affects worker behavior by increasing the number of bees that exit the hive. The results of this study suggest that these compounds are semiochemicals involved in worker recruitment. By showing that honey bee waggle dancers produce and release behaviorally active chemicals, this study reveals a new dimension in the organization of honey bee foraging.
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spelling pubmed-19942602007-09-26 The Scent of the Waggle Dance Thom, Corinna Gilley, David C Hooper, Judith Esch, Harald E PLoS Biol Research Article The waggle dance of honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) foragers communicates to nest mates the location of a profitable food source. We used solid-phase microextraction and gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry to show that waggle-dancing bees produce and release two alkanes, tricosane and pentacosane, and two alkenes, Z-(9)-tricosene and Z-(9)-pentacosene, onto their abdomens and into the air. Nondancing foragers returning from the same food source produce these substances in only minute quantities. Injection of the scent significantly affects worker behavior by increasing the number of bees that exit the hive. The results of this study suggest that these compounds are semiochemicals involved in worker recruitment. By showing that honey bee waggle dancers produce and release behaviorally active chemicals, this study reveals a new dimension in the organization of honey bee foraging. Public Library of Science 2007-09 2007-08-21 /pmc/articles/PMC1994260/ /pubmed/17713987 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.0050228 Text en This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Public Domain declaration which stipulates that, once placed in the public domain, this work may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Public Domain declaration, which stipulates that, once placed in the public domain, this work may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose.
spellingShingle Research Article
Thom, Corinna
Gilley, David C
Hooper, Judith
Esch, Harald E
The Scent of the Waggle Dance
title The Scent of the Waggle Dance
title_full The Scent of the Waggle Dance
title_fullStr The Scent of the Waggle Dance
title_full_unstemmed The Scent of the Waggle Dance
title_short The Scent of the Waggle Dance
title_sort scent of the waggle dance
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1994260/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17713987
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.0050228
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