Institute of Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Biology, Jagiellonian University, Gronostajowa 7, 30-387 Kraków, Poland.
Institute of Zoology and Biomedical Research, Faculty of Biology, Jagiellonian University, Gronostajowa 9, 30-387 Kraków, Poland.
Biol Lett. 2021 Jun;17(6):20210182. doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2021.0182. Epub 2021 Jun 16.
The honeybee continues to be developed as a model species in many research areas, including studies related to the effects of alcohol. Here, we investigate whether workers display one of the key features of alcoholism, namely withdrawal symptoms. We show that workers fed for a prolonged time on food spiked with ethanol, after discontinuation of access to such food, exhibited a marked increase in the consumption of ethanol and a slight increase in mortality. We additionally show that withdrawal symptoms do not include an increase in appetitiveness of ethanol diluted in water. Our results demonstrate that workers can develop alcohol dependence, which might be especially important in the natural setting of repeated exposure to ethanol in floral nectar and for their potential as a model of alcohol addiction.
蜜蜂继续被开发为许多研究领域的模式生物，包括与酒精影响相关的研究。在这里，我们研究了工蜂是否表现出酒精中毒的一个关键特征，即戒断症状。我们发现，长时间喂食含有乙醇的食物的工蜂在停止接触这种食物后，会明显增加对乙醇的消耗，并略微增加死亡率。我们还发现，戒断症状不包括对稀释在水中的乙醇的食欲增加。我们的结果表明，工蜂可能会产生酒精依赖，这在花蜜中反复接触乙醇的自然环境中以及作为酒精成瘾模型方面可能尤为重要。
