Meeting Abstract

93.1  Friday, Jan. 7  Desperate times call for desperate measures: Energetic stress from infection causes risk-prone foraging behavior in honeybees MAYACK, C/L*; NAUG, D; Colorado State University; Colorado State University chris85@rams.colostate.edu

Parasites are dependent on their hosts for energy and can exert a significant energetic stress on them. Using behavioral and physiological assays, we have recently established that honeybees infected with the microsporidian Nosema ceranae have a high energetic demand placed on them. We now investigate the behavioral implications of this energetic stress in the context of risk-sensitive foraging in the honeybee, Apis mellifera. Risk sensitivity theory (RST) postulates that animals faced with a choice between two options with the same mean but with different variances choose the one with a lower variance (be ‘risk-averse’) if they are on a positive energy budget while choosing the one with a higher variance (be ‘risk-prone’) if on a negative energy budget. By allowing honeybee subjects to first learn two reward distributions with different variances using a conditioned learning assay, we measured risk-sensitivity in individuals under various energy budget manipulations. Our results indicate that bees switched between risk-averse and risk-prone choices in accordance with their energetic states. In addition to providing the most comprehensive behavioral and physiological test of RST till date, we argue that energetic stress can lead to the risky and precocious foraging observed in Nosema infected bees and discuss its relevance to the colony collapse syndrome.