Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
James Sainsbury, Tomi E. Nemeth, Maria Baldo, Mateusz Jochym, Crystal Felman, Mark Goodwin, Michael Lumsden, David Pattemore, Ferenc Jeanplong
Summary: This study aimed to determine if selection for the G allele of SNP 9-9224292 could decrease Varroa mite infestation of New Zealand honey bee colonies. The results showed that colonies headed by queens with the G allele had significantly lower Varroa mite populations.
Article
Environmental Sciences
Nenad M. Zaric, Robert Brodschneider, Walter Goessler
Summary: This study analyzed the elemental composition of individual honey bees for the first time, revealing significant differences in elemental concentrations between hives within the same apiary as well as between different apiaries. The study highlights the importance of sampling a larger number of hives at each location when using honey bees as biomonitors to ensure reliable interpretation of results. Additionally, negative correlations between the dry mass of a bee and concentrations of certain elements suggest potential factors such as honey or nectar content impacting the elemental composition of individual bees.
ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH
(2022)
Article
Fisheries
Rodrigo Aaron Burciaga, Gloria Ruiz-Guzman, Humberto Lanz-Mendoza, Indrikis Krams, Jorge Contreras-Garduno
Summary: This study demonstrates for the first time that honey bees have immune memory, which helps improve their survival rate and immune activity, and has potential applications in combating natural parasites.
DEVELOPMENTAL AND COMPARATIVE IMMUNOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Phoebe A. Koenig, Kirstin H. Petersen
Summary: Honey bees are important pollinators and can be used to monitor the environment. The study found that introducing bees using an introduction cage at night was the most effective method, and the type of glue used was also important. Additionally, releasing foraging bees in front of their colony was a good approach.
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
(2022)
Article
Engineering, Environmental
Nenad M. Zaric, Simone Braeuer, Walter Goessler
Summary: This study determined arsenic concentrations and speciation analysis in honeybees for the first time, finding that the highest concentrations were near coal fired thermal power plants and urban regions. The most effective extraction method for total arsenic from honeybee samples was hot water at 90 degrees C. Inorganic arsenic accounted for the majority of arsenic species in honeybees, except in an industrial city where a significant portion was present as DMA.
JOURNAL OF HAZARDOUS MATERIALS
(2022)
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Yong Zhang, Zhen Li, Xujiang He, Zilong Wang, Zhijiang Zeng
Summary: Honey bees are an important species for studying epigenetics. Previous research has shown that DNA methylation and histone modification can lead to distinct gene expression patterns, resulting in caste differentiation. This study investigates the role of histone methylation modification H3K4me1 in caste differentiation in honey bees. The results suggest that H3K4me1 may act as an important regulatory factor in the establishment and maintenance of caste-specific transcriptional programs in honey bees.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MOLECULAR SCIENCES
(2023)
Editorial Material
Biology
Julia A. Schwartzman
Summary: The Western honey bee serves as a model system for studying how different species of bacteria can coexist in a single community.
Article
Environmental Sciences
Yahya Al Naggar, Markus Brinkmann, Christie M. Sayes, Saad N. AL-Kahtani, Showket A. Dar, Hesham R. El-Seedi, Bernd Gruenewald, John P. Giesy
Summary: Microplastics (MPs) are widespread and persistent pollutants found in various media, with potential negative effects on the health and fitness of honey bees. Further research is needed to assess the risks of MPs to bees before they can be considered a potential threat.
Review
Microbiology
Richard Galajda, Alexandra Valencakova, Monika Sucik, Petra Kandracova
Summary: Nosematosis is a honey bee disease caused by Nosema apis and Nosema ceranae, with exposure to pesticides and nutritional stress being key factors that weaken the immune response of bees and make them more susceptible to parasites. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is an important method for detecting and distinguishing between the two species causing the disease.
Article
Microbiology
Taylor J. Busby, Craig R. Miller, Nancy A. Moran, James T. Van Leuven
Summary: Microbial communities in animal digestive systems play crucial roles in host development and health. However, little is known about the temporal and spatial dynamics of bacteriophage communities in animal digestive systems. This study focuses on bacteriophages in the gut of honey bees and reveals their conservation and specialization in different geographic locations.
Article
Environmental Sciences
Mark Patrick Taylor, Max M. Gillings, Kara L. Fry, Cynthia F. Barlow, Peggy Gunkel-Grillion, Romain Gueyte, Margot Camoin
Summary: This study investigated trace element contamination in honey bees in urban areas close to a large nickel smelter in Noumea, New Caledonia. The results showed that the concentration of trace elements, including nickel, cobalt, and chromium, was higher in bees closer to the smelter. The study also suggested that the transfer of trace elements from bees to honey during production is negligible.
ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION
(2023)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Claus Rasmussen, Yoko L. Dupont, Henning Bang Madsen, Petr Bogusch, Dave Goulson, Lina Herbertsson, Kate Pereira Maia, Anders Nielsen, Jens M. Olesen, Simon G. Potts, Stuart P. M. Roberts, Markus Arne Kjaer Sydenham, Per Kryger
Summary: The study identified and summarized forage plants for honey bees and wild bee species in Denmark, finding that they share 176 plant genera. Although no significant relationship was found between the overlap of honey bees and wild bees and their forage specialization or conservation status, data for individual species could be summarized.
Article
Environmental Sciences
Lea Tison, Celine Franc, Louisiane Burkart, Herve Jactel, Karine Monceau, Gilles de Revel, Denis Thiery
Summary: Pesticides used for plant protection are a major cause of insect decline. This study found pesticide residues in the invasive hornet Vespa velutina, which preys on honey bees. The results show that hornets from nests in urban areas are the most contaminated.
ENVIRONMENT INTERNATIONAL
(2023)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Jiangkun Wei, Alejandro Rico-Guevara, Susan W. Nicolson, Fabian Brau, Pascal Damman, Stanislav N. Gorb, Zhigang Wu, Jianing Wu
Summary: This study reveals the multiple strategies used by honey bees to efficiently extract nectar, including dipping their tongues, capillary loading, and sucking nectar along the tongue sides. These versatile feeding mechanisms enable honey bees to extract nectar from a wider range of floral resources and adapt to diverse foraging environments.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
(2023)
Article
Veterinary Sciences
Marc O. Schaefer, Juliane Horenk, Claudia Wylezich
Summary: Malpighamoeba mellificae is a protozoan that infects the Malpighian tubules of honey bees, causing amoebiasis disease. Knowledge of the disease and its spreading is limited, and the lack of genetic markers hampers identification and epidemiology studies. This study developed a diagnostic RT-qPCR assay to accurately detect M. mellificae infection and can be used for honey bee health monitoring and investigating the prevalence of the parasite.
VETERINARY SCIENCES
(2022)
Article
Robotics
Anil Ozdemir, Mark Scerri, Andrew B. Barron, Andrew Philippides, Michael Mangan, Eleni Vasilaki, Luca Manneschi
Summary: Recognizing previously visited locations is an important but unsolved task in autonomous navigation. Recent research has shown that Echo State Networks (ESNs) can effectively solve this task and improve performance and generalization abilities.
IEEE ROBOTICS AND AUTOMATION LETTERS
(2022)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Coline Monchanin, Maria Gabriela de Brito Sanchez, Lorelei Lecouvreur, Oceane Boidard, Gregoire Mery, Jerome Silvestre, Gael Le Roux, David Baque, Arnaud Elger, Andrew B. Barron, Mathieu Lihoreau, Jean-Marc Devaud
Summary: The ability of honey bees to avoid food contaminated with common metal pollutants was investigated. The results showed that bees did not distinguish between contaminated and uncontaminated food, and only showed reduced intake and appetitive responses at high concentrations of lead and zinc. It was found that bees were unable to detect low concentrations of harmful metals like arsenic and lead in their food, indicating that trace metal pollution poses a major threat to pollinators.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Yi Bo Liu, Zhi Jiang Zeng, Andrew B. Barron, Ye Ma, Yu Zhu He, Jun Feng Liu, Zhen Li, Wei Yu Yan, Xu Jiang He
Summary: The study revealed that nonanal is the only scent component detected in various honeybee-pollinated plants and is strongly attractive to honeybees. Nonanal is present in both honey and nectar, forming a learned association with food reward in honeybees.
Article
Environmental Sciences
Amy M. Paten, Theotime Colin, Chris W. Coppin, Leon N. Court, Andrew B. Barron, John G. Oakeshott, Matthew J. Morgan
Summary: Understanding the cumulative risk of chemical mixtures at environmentally realistic concentrations is crucial in honey bee ecotoxicology. Ecotoxicogenomics, specifically transcriptomics, can provide insights into the mechanisms underlying phenotypic responses and link them to population impacts. In this study, gene expression profiles of honey bee larvae exposed to the pesticide imidacloprid and acaricide thymol, both separately and in combination, were analyzed using RNA-seq. The separate and combined treatments had distinct gene expression profiles, affecting different signaling and metabolic pathways. The molecular signature of the mixture revealed additive interactions in stress responses and non-additive interactions in secondary responses. Novel impacts on eye development genes correlated with long-term defects in visual learning performance. Establishing mechanistic links between molecular and phenotypic responses is important when predicting the effects of chemical mixtures on populations.
SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT
(2022)
Article
Ecology
Theotime Colin, Ryan J. Warren, Stephen R. Quarrell, Geoff R. Allen, Andrew B. Barron
Summary: Assessing individual foraging performance is crucial for environmental policy-making. We have developed a new autonomous field method using RFID to record honey bee flight ontogeny and foraging performance. By separating bee traffic into returning and exiting tunnels, we have overcome previous limitations of RFID systems caused by traffic jams and antennae coupling.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Xu Jiang He, Andrew B. Barron, Liu Yang, Hu Chen, Yu Zhu He, Li Zhen Zhang, Qiang Huang, Zi Long Wang, Xiao Bo Wu, Wei Yu Yan, Zhi Jiang Zeng
Summary: This study reveals that there are significant differences in mRNA transcripts between honeybee queens and workers during their larval development. These differences are generated by a flexible splicing system. Poly(A) tails are found to negatively regulate the expression of differentially expressed transcript isoforms (DEIs) involved in caste differentiation. The expression of isoforms is unique to each caste and varies at different developmental stages, indicating a dynamic relationship between isoform expression and developmental mechanisms.
Article
Psychology, Experimental
Mark Kelly, Andrew B. Barron
Summary: Human cognition involves two types of reasoning: intuitive and fast Type 1 reasoning systems, and reflective and slow Type 2 reasoning systems. Exploring the benefits of dual processes of reasoning, a comparative perspective reveals how selective attention in insects and AI using dual systems of learning have transformed learning capacities and exceeded human performance in strategy games.
Article
Biology
Cwyn Solvi, Yonghe Zhou, Yunxiao Feng, Yuyi Lu, Mark Roper, Li Sun, Rebecca J. Reid, Lars Chittka, Andrew B. Barron, Fei Peng
Summary: This study found that bumblebees' preferences are based only on memories of ordinal comparisons. They use absolute information to rank different flowers, but memories for absolute information are lost or cannot be retrieved after 1 hour.
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Yong Zhang, Xu Jiang He, Andrew B. Barron, Zhen Li, Meng Jie Jin, Zi Long Wang, Qiang Huang, Li Zhen Zhang, Xiao Bo Wu, Wei Yu Yan, Zhi Jiang Zeng
Summary: Using a multiomics approach, we investigated the epigenomic landscapes of honey bee workers and queens during development, revealing distinct differences between the two castes. Genes involved in caste differentiation were regulated by multiple epigenomic systems, and manipulation of two candidate genes resulted in decreased weight and fewer ovarioles in newly emerged queens. These findings demonstrate the development of distinct epigenomic landscapes in worker and queen bees.
INSECT BIOCHEMISTRY AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Entomology
Nurul Wahida Othman, Andrew B. Barron, Paul D. Cooper
Summary: Biting and chewing insects, such as crickets, have a foregut with a crop that allows them to store and process food when they cannot find it. During a short period of starvation, the size of the salivary glands of crickets decreases, but they immediately increase in size upon feeding. The amines that stimulate gland secretion are stored in the zymogen cells instead of the parietal cells, indicating that feeding and starving can affect different parts of the digestive system.
Review
Biology
Andrew B. Barron, Marta Halina, Colin Klein
Summary: The evolutionary history of animal cognition involves major transitions that opened up new possibilities for cognitive abilities. This article reviews and compares different explanations of these transitions. It argues that an important aspect of an evolutionary transition is that it changes what can be evolved, leading to differences in phenotypic spaces before and after the transition. The article proposes a framework for understanding cognitive evolution that focuses on how selection acts on the computational architecture of nervous systems.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2023)
Editorial Material
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Andrew Barron, Susan E. Fahrbach, Alison R. Mercer, Karen A. Mesce, David J. Schulz, Brian H. Smith, Eirik Sovik
Summary: Huang et al. argue that honey bees exhibit a human-like dopamine-regulated neuromodulatory mechanism underlying food-seeking behavior. However, there are concerns that need to be addressed before their results and interpretation can be widely accepted.
Meeting Abstract
Substance Abuse
C. J. Perry, T. M. Ferella, A. Lin, J. L. Cornish, A. J. Lawrence
ALCOHOLISM-CLINICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH
(2023)
Meeting Abstract
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Priscila Costa, Laisa Umpierrez, Anita Turner, Nicholas Everett, Christina Perry, Sarah Baracz, Jennifer Cornish
JOURNAL OF NEUROCHEMISTRY
(2022)
