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Young honeybees show learned preferences after experiencing adulterated pollen
Pollen selection affects honeybee colony development and productivity. Considering that pollen is consumed by young in-hive bees, and not by foragers, we hypothesized that young bees learn pollen cues and adjust their preferences to the most suitable pollens. To assess whether young bees show prefer...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8640054/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34857828 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-02700-6 |
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author | Lajad, Rocío Moreno, Emilia Arenas, Andrés |
author_facet | Lajad, Rocío Moreno, Emilia Arenas, Andrés |
author_sort | Lajad, Rocío |
collection | PubMed |
description | Pollen selection affects honeybee colony development and productivity. Considering that pollen is consumed by young in-hive bees, and not by foragers, we hypothesized that young bees learn pollen cues and adjust their preferences to the most suitable pollens. To assess whether young bees show preferences based on learning for highly or poorly suitable pollens, we measured consumption preferences for two pure monofloral pollens after the bees had experienced one of them adulterated with a deterrent (amygdalin or quinine) or a phagostimulant (linoleic acid). Preferences were obtained from nurse-aged bees confined in cages and from nurse bees in open colonies. Furthermore, we tested the bees’ orientation in a Y-maze using a neutral odour (Linalool or Nonanal) that had been previously associated with an amygdalin-adulterated pollen. Consumption preferences of bees, both in cages and in colonies, were reduced for pollens that had been adulterated with deterrents and increased for pollens that had been supplemented with linoleic acid. In the Y-maze, individuals consistently avoided the odours that they had previously experienced paired with the deterrent-adulterated pollen. Results show that nurse-aged bees associate pollen-based or pollen-related cues with either a distasteful/malaise experience or a tasty/nutritious event, leading to memories that bias their pollen-mediated response. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8640054 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-86400542021-12-06 Young honeybees show learned preferences after experiencing adulterated pollen Lajad, Rocío Moreno, Emilia Arenas, Andrés Sci Rep Article Pollen selection affects honeybee colony development and productivity. Considering that pollen is consumed by young in-hive bees, and not by foragers, we hypothesized that young bees learn pollen cues and adjust their preferences to the most suitable pollens. To assess whether young bees show preferences based on learning for highly or poorly suitable pollens, we measured consumption preferences for two pure monofloral pollens after the bees had experienced one of them adulterated with a deterrent (amygdalin or quinine) or a phagostimulant (linoleic acid). Preferences were obtained from nurse-aged bees confined in cages and from nurse bees in open colonies. Furthermore, we tested the bees’ orientation in a Y-maze using a neutral odour (Linalool or Nonanal) that had been previously associated with an amygdalin-adulterated pollen. Consumption preferences of bees, both in cages and in colonies, were reduced for pollens that had been adulterated with deterrents and increased for pollens that had been supplemented with linoleic acid. In the Y-maze, individuals consistently avoided the odours that they had previously experienced paired with the deterrent-adulterated pollen. Results show that nurse-aged bees associate pollen-based or pollen-related cues with either a distasteful/malaise experience or a tasty/nutritious event, leading to memories that bias their pollen-mediated response. Nature Publishing Group UK 2021-12-02 /pmc/articles/PMC8640054/ /pubmed/34857828 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-02700-6 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | Article Lajad, Rocío Moreno, Emilia Arenas, Andrés Young honeybees show learned preferences after experiencing adulterated pollen |
title | Young honeybees show learned preferences after experiencing adulterated pollen |
title_full | Young honeybees show learned preferences after experiencing adulterated pollen |
title_fullStr | Young honeybees show learned preferences after experiencing adulterated pollen |
title_full_unstemmed | Young honeybees show learned preferences after experiencing adulterated pollen |
title_short | Young honeybees show learned preferences after experiencing adulterated pollen |
title_sort | young honeybees show learned preferences after experiencing adulterated pollen |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8640054/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34857828 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-02700-6 |
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