Institute for Biology/General Zoology, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, 06120, Halle (Saale), Germany.
Department of Biology, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA, 19081, USA.
J Comp Physiol A Neuroethol Sens Neural Behav Physiol. 2019 Aug;205(4):609-617. doi: 10.1007/s00359-019-01352-2. Epub 2019 Jun 12.
Insects have rapidly changing energy demands, so they primarily rely on hemolymph and other carbohydrates to carry out life activities. However, how gustatory responsiveness and hemolymph sugar levels coordinate with one another to maintain energetic homeostasis in insects remains largely unknown for the highly social honeybee that goes through large physiological and behavioral changes. The potential role of biogenic amines and neuropeptides in the connection between the regulation of appetite and fluctuating sugar levels in the hemolymph, due to starvation, as the bee ages, was investigated. The largest appetite increase due to the starvation treatment was within the forager age class and this corresponded with an increase in octopamine levels in the brain along with a decline in hemolymph sugar levels. Adipokinetic hormone (AKH) was found in very small quantities in the brain and there were no significant changes in response to starvation treatment. Our findings suggest that the particularly dynamic levels of hemolymph sugar levels may serve as a monitor of the forager honeybee energetic state. Therefore, there may be a pathway in forager bees via octopamine responsible for their precise precipitous regulation of appetite, but to determine cause and effect relationships further investigation is needed.
昆虫的能量需求变化迅速，因此它们主要依赖血淋巴和其他碳水化合物来进行生命活动。然而，对于高度社会化的蜜蜂来说，其经历了巨大的生理和行为变化，关于味觉反应和血淋巴糖水平如何相互协调以维持能量平衡，目前知之甚少。由于饥饿、衰老等原因，研究了生物胺和神经肽在调节食欲和血淋巴中糖水平波动之间的潜在作用。由于饥饿处理，觅食蜂龄类别的食欲增加最大，这与大脑中章鱼胺水平的增加以及血淋巴糖水平的下降相对应。在大脑中发现了非常少量的促肾上腺皮质激素（AKH），并且对饥饿处理没有明显的变化。我们的研究结果表明，血淋巴糖水平的特别动态水平可能是觅食蜜蜂能量状态的监测器。因此，在觅食蜜蜂中可能存在一条通过章鱼胺的途径，负责其对食欲的精确调节，但要确定因果关系，还需要进一步的研究。
