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The parasitic mite Varroa destructor affects non-associative learning in honey bee foragers, Apis mellifera L.

Journal of Comparative Physiology A volume 193, pages 363–370 (2007)Cite this article

Abstract

The parasitic mite Varroa destructor influences flight behavior, orientation and returning success of forager honeybees (Apis mellifera) infested as adults. As impaired orientation toward the nest entrance might be due to deficiency in recognition and responsiveness to stimuli in the environment, we examined effects of V. destructor on sensory responsiveness, non-associative and associative learning of honey bee foragers by using proboscis extension reaction paradigm (PER). Although infested and uninfested workers were initially equally responsive to different concentrations of sugar water, we found differences in non-associative learning. In habituation, PER to repeated sugar stimulation of the antennae occurred faster in infested foragers compared to uninfested foragers. In sensitization, infested foragers showed a lower response to an odor stimulus following sugar stimulation than non-infested foragers. Differences in non-associative paradigms were more pronounced in bees with lower responsiveness to sucrose. In conditioning learning experiments, a significant reduction in proboscis extension response was found 1 min but not 12 min after a single conditioning trial indicating that V. destructor predominantly affects the non-associative components of learning and its underlying neural and molecular processes.

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Acknowledgments

We want to thank the people of the BEEgroup, Würzburg for their support and Dr. Ricarda Scheiner, TU Berlin, for useful suggestions on a previous draft. The experiments comply with the principles of animal care, publication No. 86–23, revised 1985, of the National Institute of Health and also with the current laws of the country in which the experiments were performed.

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Author notes

  1. Axel Brockmann

    Present address: Department of Entomology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 320 Morill Hall, 505 S. Goodwin Avenue, Urbana, IL, 61801, USA

Affiliations

  1. National Institute of Biology, Večna pot 111, Ljubljana , 1000, Slovenia

    Jasna Kralj

  2. Institut für Bienenkunde (Polytechnische Gesellschaft), FB Biowissenschaften, J.W. Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, Karl von Frisch Weg 2, Oberursel, 61440, Germany

    Jasna Kralj & Stefan Fuchs

  3. BEEGroup, Biozentrum, Universität Am Hubland, Würzburg , 97074, Germany

    Axel Brockmann & Jürgen Tautz

Authors
  1. Jasna Kralj
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  2. Axel Brockmann
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  3. Stefan Fuchs
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  4. Jürgen Tautz
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jasna Kralj.

Additional information

Jasna Kralj and Axel Brockmann have contributed equally to this study.

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Kralj, J., Brockmann, A., Fuchs, S. et al. The parasitic mite Varroa destructor affects non-associative learning in honey bee foragers, Apis mellifera L.. J Comp Physiol A 193, 363–370 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-006-0192-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-006-0192-8

Keywords

  • Apis mellifera
  • Varroa destructor
  • Habituation
  • Sensitization
  • Learning