Liang Zhengzheng S, Mattila Heather R, Rodriguez-Zas Sandra L, Southey Bruce R, Seeley Thomas D, Robinson Gene E
Neuroscience Program, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA.
Department of Biological Sciences, Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA 02481, USA.
Proc Biol Sci. 2014 Dec 22;281(1797). doi: 10.1098/rspb.2014.1868.
Individual differences in behaviour are often consistent across time and contexts, but it is not clear whether such consistency is reflected at the molecular level. We explored this issue by studying scouting in honeybees in two different behavioural and ecological contexts: finding new sources of floral food resources and finding a new nest site. Brain gene expression profiles in food-source and nest-site scouts showed a significant overlap, despite large expression differences associated with the two different contexts. Class prediction and 'leave-one-out' cross-validation analyses revealed that a bee's role as a scout in either context could be predicted with 92.5% success using 89 genes at minimum. We also found that genes related to four neurotransmitter systems were part of a shared brain molecular signature in both types of scouts, and the two types of scouts were more similar for genes related to glutamate and GABA than catecholamine or acetylcholine signalling. These results indicate that consistent behavioural tendencies across different ecological contexts involve a mixture of similarities and differences in brain gene expression.
行为上的个体差异通常在时间和环境中保持一致，但尚不清楚这种一致性是否在分子水平上有所体现。我们通过研究蜜蜂在两种不同行为和生态环境下的侦查行为来探讨这个问题：寻找新的花卉食物资源来源和寻找新的巢穴地点。尽管与这两种不同环境相关的基因表达存在很大差异，但食物源和巢穴地点侦查蜂的大脑基因表达谱显示出显著的重叠。分类预测和“留一法”交叉验证分析表明，使用至少89个基因，蜜蜂在任何一种环境下作为侦查蜂的角色预测成功率可达92.5%。我们还发现，与四种神经递质系统相关的基因是两种侦查蜂共享的大脑分子特征的一部分，并且与谷氨酸和γ-氨基丁酸相关的基因在两种侦查蜂中比与儿茶酚胺或乙酰胆碱信号传导相关的基因更相似。这些结果表明，不同生态环境下一致的行为倾向涉及大脑基因表达中的相似性和差异的混合。
