DISSERTATION RESEARCH: How Worker Honey Bees Detect their Colony's Size: Testing the Comb Vibration and Chemical Composition Hypotheses

论文研究：工蜂如何检测蜂群大小：测试蜂巢振动和化学成分假设

• 批准号: 1600775
• 负责人: Thomas Seeley
• 金额: $ 2.09万
• 依托单位: Cornell University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-05-01 至 2018-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1600775&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: DISSERTATION; RESEARCH; How; Worker; Honey

Honey bees, live as a group of organisms that form a cooperative unit: a colony. Colonies, like individuals, have a cycle of growth and development. When a colony transitions between developmental stages, the workers must coordinate the transition. The goal of this project is to understand the cues that non-reproductive worker honey bees use to detect the developmental stage of their colony and coordinate the switch between producing more workers and producing reproductive males and females (drones and queens). This research will encourage collaboration between researchers studying animal behavior, chemical ecology, and electrical engineering. Current methods used by beekeepers to assess the strength and developmental stage of a honey bee colony are based on metrics that humans can easily determine, but are almost certainly not those used by the bees. Honey bees are the primary pollinator of agricultural crops worldwide, providing billions of dollars of pollination services. By identifying the metrics that bees use to detect their own colony's development, this research will help beekeepers determine which colonies need to be managed, and when. Better colony management can in turn improve crop production. The outcomes of this research will be shared through beekeeping classes. This project will also train graduate and undergraduate researchers in behavioral ecology, chemical ecology and engineering.Descriptive work has shown that social insect colonies invest first in workers (for growth) and then switch to producing reproductive individuals. Theoretical work has shown why colonies invest as they do, but it is unknown how developmental transitions are coordinated. The researchers recently discovered that a threshold number of workers is the trigger that induces honey bee colonies to invest in reproduction, but how workers detect this reproductive threshold is unknown. The goal of this research is to test two hypotheses of the mechanism by which individual honey bees assess their colony?s size: (1) beeswax comb vibrations, and (2) volatile chemical compounds. Using accelerometers to measure comb vibrations, and gas chromatography to analyze chemical compounds, the researchers will determine whether these cues reliably change with colony size. The cues will then be experimentally manipulated, to determine which one(s) the workers use to detect that their colony is above the reproductive threshold. Understanding the cues that superorganisms use to coordinate their developmental transitions will give insights into how evolution has solved similar problems at different levels of biological organization such as individuals and societies.

蜂蜜蜜蜂，作为一个构成合作单元的生物体生存：一个殖民地。像个人一样，殖民地也有生长和发展的循环。当发展阶段之间的菌落过渡时，工人必须协调过渡。该项目的目的是了解非生殖工人蜜蜂用来检测其殖民地发育阶段的线索，并协调培养更多工人与生产生殖男性和女性（无人机和皇后区）之间的转换。这项研究将鼓励研究动物行为，化学生态学和电气工程的研究人员之间的合作。养蜂人用来评估蜂蜜蜜蜂殖民地的强度和发育阶段的当前方法是基于人类可以轻松确定的指标，但几乎肯定不是蜜蜂使用的指标。蜜蜂是全球农作物的主要传粉者，提供数十亿美元的授粉服务。通过确定蜜蜂用于检测自己殖民地发展的指标，这项研究将帮助养蜂人确定需要管理哪些殖民地以及何时。 更好的殖民地管理又可以改善作物的产量。这项研究的结果将通过养蜂业分享。该项目还将在行为生态，化学生态学和工程学领域培训研究生和本科研究人员。描述性工作表明，社会昆虫殖民地首先投资于工人（用于成长），然后转向生产生殖的人。理论工作表明了殖民地为何像这样投资，但是未知发展过渡是如何协调的。研究人员最近发现，阈值的工人数量是诱导蜜蜂殖民地投资繁殖的触发因素，但是工人如何检测这种生殖阈值是未知的。这项研究的目的是检验单个蜜蜂评估其菌落大小的机制的两个假设：（1）蜂蜡梳振动和（2）挥发性化合物。研究人员使用加速度计测量梳子振动和气相色谱法分析化合物，研究人员将确定这些提示是否随着菌落大小可靠地变化。然后，将对提示进行实验操纵，以确定工人用来检测其菌落是否高于生殖阈值的一个。了解超生物用来协调其发育过渡的线索将有见识进化如何在不同级别的生物组织（例如个人和社会）解决类似问题。