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Comparison of learning and memory of Apis cerana and Apis mellifera

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Abstract

The honeybee is an excellent model organism for research on learning and memory among invertebrates. Learning and memory in honeybees has intrigued neuroscientists and entomologists in the last few decades, but attention has focused almost solely on the Western honeybee, Apis mellifera. In contrast, there have been few studies on learning and memory in the Eastern honeybee, Apis cerana. Here we report comparative behavioral data of color and grating learning and memory for A. cerana and A. mellifera in China, gathered using a Y-maze apparatus. We show for the first time that the learning and memory performance of A. cerana is significantly better on both color and grating patterns than that of A. mellifera. This study provides the first evidence of a learning and memory difference between A. cerana and A. mellifera under controlled conditions, and it is an important basis for the further study of the mechanism of learning and memory in honeybees.

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Abbreviations

A. mellifera :

Apis mellifera

A. cerana :

Apis cerana

CCD:

Colony collapse disorder

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Acknowledgments

We thank Hong Zhu for invaluable guidance and assistance with all of the experiments, Fei Zhang and Junfeng Liu for help with beekeeping, Jianjin Zeng for constructing the maze apparatus, Haiyan Gan and Xu Han for help with behavioral experiments, Dr. Aung Si and Dr. Zilong Wang for helpful suggestions that improved the manuscript, and theCenter of Analysis and Measurement of Zhejiang University for measuring the spectra of color patterns. This work was supported by the Earmarked Fund for the China Agricultural Research System (no. CARS-45-KXJ12) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 31060327).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Honeybee Research Institute, Jiangxi Agricultural University, Nanchang, 330045, People’s Republic of China

    Qiu-Hong Qin, Xu-Jiang He, Liu-Qing Tian & Zhi-Jiang Zeng

  2. ARC Center of Excellence in Vision Science, Research School of Biology, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, 0200, Australia

    Shao-Wu Zhang

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  1. Qiu-Hong Qin
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Correspondence to Shao-Wu Zhang or Zhi-Jiang Zeng.

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Qin, QH., He, XJ., Tian, LQ. et al. Comparison of learning and memory of Apis cerana and Apis mellifera . J Comp Physiol A 198, 777–786 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-012-0747-9

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