School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2012;7(4):e33465. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0033465. Epub 2012 Apr 30.
Honey bees are a model system for the study of division of labor. Worker bees demonstrate a foraging division of labor (DOL) by biasing collection towards carbohydrates (nectar) or protein (pollen). The Reproductive ground-plan hypothesis of Amdam et al. proposes that foraging DOL is regulated by the networks that controlled foraging behavior during the reproductive life cycle of honey bee ancestors. Here we test a proposed mechanism through which the ovary of the facultatively sterile worker impacts foraging bias. The proposed mechanism suggests that the ovary has a regulatory effect on sucrose sensitivity, and sucrose sensitivity impacts nectar loading. We tested this mechanism by measuring worker ovary size (ovariole number), sucrose sensitivity, and sucrose solution load size collected from a rate-controlled artificial feeder. We found a significant interaction between ovariole number and sucrose sensitivity on sucrose solution load size when using low concentration nectar. This supports our proposed mechanism. As nectar and pollen loading are not independent, a mechanism impacting nectar load size would also impact pollen load size.
蜜蜂是研究劳动分工的模式系统。工蜂通过偏向于收集碳水化合物（花蜜）或蛋白质（花粉）来表现出觅食分工（DOL）。Amdam 等人的生殖基础计划假说提出，觅食 DOL 是由控制蜜蜂祖先生殖生命周期中觅食行为的网络调节的。在这里，我们通过检测一个有争议的机制来检验卵巢对觅食偏爱的影响。该机制表明，卵巢对蔗糖敏感性有调节作用，而蔗糖敏感性影响花蜜的加载量。我们通过测量从速率控制人工喂养器收集的工蜂卵巢大小（卵巢管数）、蔗糖敏感性和蔗糖溶液负载量来测试该机制。当使用低浓度花蜜时，我们发现卵巢管数和蔗糖敏感性对蔗糖溶液负载量有显著的交互作用。这支持了我们提出的机制。由于花蜜和花粉的加载量不是独立的，影响花蜜加载量的机制也会影响花粉加载量。
