Meeting Abstract

P3.12  Sunday, Jan. 6  Senescence Marker Expression is Linked to Foraging Decisions in Honey Bees BOBEK, JE*; HRANITZ, JM; BARTHELL, JF; CLEMENT, M; APTED, T; BATES, L; HALL, N; CAKMAK, I; WELLS, H; Bloomsburg University; Bloomsburg University; University of Central Oklahoma; University of Central Oklahoma; American Samoa Community College; University of Central Oklahoma; Loyola Marymount University; Uludag University; Tulsa University jonathan.bobek@asu.edu

Foraging behavior differs among individual honey bees, indicating a genetic basis to foraging decisions by these globally important pollinators. Many bees exhibit flower constancy during foraging, where individuals faithfully return to a specific flower color. Since developmental gene expression produces age-dependent behaviors in hive castes, we studied how gene expression affects decision-making during foraging. During June-July 2010 at Uludag University (Turkey), we monitored honey bee foraging in a 60-minute behavioral assay to categorize foraging patterns of free-flying Anatolian honey bees (Apis mellifera anatolica). Bees selected from alternative reward conditions, high reward quality versus low reward quality, randomized in artificial blue and yellow flowers. Blue or yellow “constant” bees rarely visited opposing color flowers, while “undecided” bees readily switched to the higher reward flower quality. We compared brain mRNA of three groups (Blue Constant (BCF), Yellow Constant (YCF), Undecided (UF) foragers) on Agilent bee arrays, using a one-way ANOVA with pairwise contrasts. Only regucalcin-like protein differed between groups (F = 30.39508, p = 0.001855), with two-fold lower expression in YCF versus UF and BCF bees. No difference in regucalcin expression was found between BCF versus UF bees. Since regucalcin is linked to aging in animals, flower color choice and responsiveness to floral rewards by foraging honey bees may be an age- or development-dependent behavior, similar to other behaviors within the hive.