Behavioral and neural response of honey bee (Apis mellifera) magnetoreception
Date Issued
2012
Date
2012
Author(s)
Liang, Chao-Hung
Abstract
It has been well known that the honey bees, Apis mellifera, are able to detect the earth’s magnetic field. So far, two hypothesized models are proposed for the magnetoreception of terrestrial animals, i.e. the chemical and the magnetite-based magnetoreception. Previous studies showed that there are some iron granules in the fat body and the trophocytes of the honey bees’ abdomen, suggesting the iron granules are responsible for sensing magnetic changes. However, there is no direct evidence to associate these iron granules with the magnetoreception of honey bee. In addition, the magnetoreceptor of the chemical magnetoreception system, so called cryptochrome, has also been found in the honey bees’ brain which might be the potential magnetoreceptor of the bee. In this study, we first conducted the classical conditioning experiment by monitoring the proboscis extension reflex (PER) to demonstrate the ability of honey bee’s magneticoreception. Honey bees were trained successfully to associate the magnetic stimulus with a sucrose reward after two days of training. Then, the ventral nervous cord was cut to disconnect the signal transmission from the abdomen to the brain. The honey bees could no longer associate the magnetic stimulus with the sucrose reward after the disconnection, but still could learn an olfactory PER task. Moreover, the neural signals transmitted by the VNC have also been recorded at the “neck” of the bees. Our results demonstrate that the bees can be trained to combine the magnetic stimulus and PER through classical conditioning, and reveal that the magnetoreception signals come from the abdomen via the ventral nervous cord to the bee brain and confirm the magnetite-based magnetoreception in honey bee.
Subjects
honey bee
biological magnetic sense
classical condition
proboscis extension reflex
magnetite-based magnetoreception
Type
thesis
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