TY - JOUR
T1 - Aversive Foraging Conditions Modulate Downstream Social Food Sharing
AU - Finkelstein, Abby Basya
AU - Amdam, Gro
N1 - Funding Information:
We would like to thank Zamzam Hashi, Achal Patel, and Austin Huang for assistance with spot-check observations and experimental setup, and Dan Punch for valuable advice on cage design. Patrick Arrufat’s expertise was indespensible in rigging feeder slots with electric shock. Emily Merfeld’s insight into the sucrose responsiveness data led to the exploration of non-foragers’ self-specialization illustrated in Figure 1c–f. We are grateful to Sabine Deviche as well as the Arizona State University Vislab for graphic designs of the experimental setup. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program under Grant No. DGE-1311230 awarded to A.B.F. G.V.A. was supported by the Research Counsel of Norway, award #262137.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018, The Author(s).
PY - 2018/12/1
Y1 - 2018/12/1
N2 - Eusocial insects divide their labour so that individuals working inside the nest are affected by external conditions through a cascade of social interactions. Honey bees (Apis mellifera) transfer food and information via mouth-to-mouth social feeding, ie trophallaxis, a process known to be modulated by the rate of food flow at feeders and familiarity of food’s scent. Little is understood about how aversive foraging conditions such as predation and con-specific competition affect trophallaxis. We hypothesized that aversive conditions have an impact on food transfer inside the colony. Here we explore the effect of foragers’ aversive experience on downstream trophallaxis in a cage paradigm. Each cage contained one group of bees that was separated from feeders by mesh and allowed to feed only through trophallaxis, and another group that had access to feeders and self-specialized to either forage or distribute food. Our results show that aversive foraging conditions increase non-foragers’ trophallaxis with bees restricted from feeder access when food is scented, and have the opposite effect when food is unscented. We discuss potential behavioural mechanisms and implications for the impact of aversive conditions such as malaise inducing toxins, predation, and con-specific competition.
AB - Eusocial insects divide their labour so that individuals working inside the nest are affected by external conditions through a cascade of social interactions. Honey bees (Apis mellifera) transfer food and information via mouth-to-mouth social feeding, ie trophallaxis, a process known to be modulated by the rate of food flow at feeders and familiarity of food’s scent. Little is understood about how aversive foraging conditions such as predation and con-specific competition affect trophallaxis. We hypothesized that aversive conditions have an impact on food transfer inside the colony. Here we explore the effect of foragers’ aversive experience on downstream trophallaxis in a cage paradigm. Each cage contained one group of bees that was separated from feeders by mesh and allowed to feed only through trophallaxis, and another group that had access to feeders and self-specialized to either forage or distribute food. Our results show that aversive foraging conditions increase non-foragers’ trophallaxis with bees restricted from feeder access when food is scented, and have the opposite effect when food is unscented. We discuss potential behavioural mechanisms and implications for the impact of aversive conditions such as malaise inducing toxins, predation, and con-specific competition.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41598-018-35910-6
DO - 10.1038/s41598-018-35910-6
M3 - Article
C2 - 30531822
AN - SCOPUS:85058188779
SN - 2045-2322
VL - 8
JO - Scientific reports
JF - Scientific reports
IS - 1
M1 - 17764
ER -