Morgan S M, Butz Huryn V M, Downes S R, Mercer A R
Centre for Neuroscience and Department of Zoology, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand.
Behav Brain Res. 1998 Mar;91(1-2):115-26. doi: 10.1016/s0166-4328(97)00118-6.
During the first week of adult life the olfactory system of the honey bee undergoes a critical period of maturation [Masson and Arnold, Organisation and plasticity of the olfactory system of the honeybee, Apis mellifera, in: Menzel and Mercer (Eds.), Neurobiology and Behaviour of Honeybees. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1987, pp. 280 295]. This is accompanied by dramatic increases in the volume of the antennal lobes [Winnington et al., Structural plasticity of identified glomeruli in the antennal lobes of the adult worker honey bee. J. Comp. Neurol., 365 (1996) 479-490], centres of the brain that receive direct input from primary olfactory receptor neurons housed in the antennae of the bee. Here, we show that during the first 4-6 days of adult life there is a significant increase in the percentage of bees that respond to a conditioned olfactory stimulus after a single conditioning trial and, furthermore, that the ontogeny of this olfactory learning behaviour is altered significantly if the queen is removed from the colony. The absence of a queen during early adult life also has site-specific effects on the maturation of the antennal lobes of the brain. These results show for the first time that the queen's presence in a colony has a significant impact not only on the behaviour of the adult worker honey bee, but also on the structure of the brain.
在成年后的第一周，蜜蜂的嗅觉系统经历一个关键的成熟阶段[马森和阿诺德，《蜜蜂（西方蜜蜂）嗅觉系统的组织与可塑性》，载于：门泽尔和默瑟（编），《蜜蜂的神经生物学与行为》。施普林格出版社，柏林，1987年，第280 - 295页]。这伴随着触角叶体积的显著增加[温宁顿等人，成年工蜂触角叶中已识别神经纤维球的结构可塑性。《比较神经学杂志》，365（1996年）479 - 490]，触角叶是大脑中接收来自蜜蜂触角中初级嗅觉受体神经元直接输入的区域。在此，我们表明，在成年后的前4 - 6天，经过单次条件化试验后对条件化嗅觉刺激有反应的蜜蜂百分比显著增加，此外，如果从蜂群中移除蜂王，这种嗅觉学习行为的个体发育会发生显著改变。成年早期蜂王的缺失对大脑触角叶的成熟也有位点特异性影响。这些结果首次表明，蜂群中蜂王的存在不仅对成年工蜂的行为有重大影响，而且对大脑结构也有重大影响。
