Abstract
Insects have rapidly changing energy demands, so they primarily rely on hemolymph and other carbohydrates to carry out life activities. However, how gustatory responsiveness and hemolymph sugar levels coordinate with one another to maintain energetic homeostasis in insects remains largely unknown for the highly social honeybee that goes through large physiological and behavioral changes. The potential role of biogenic amines and neuropeptides in the connection between the regulation of appetite and fluctuating sugar levels in the hemolymph, due to starvation, as the bee ages, was investigated. The largest appetite increase due to the starvation treatment was within the forager age class and this corresponded with an increase in octopamine levels in the brain along with a decline in hemolymph sugar levels. Adipokinetic hormone (AKH) was found in very small quantities in the brain and there were no significant changes in response to starvation treatment. Our findings suggest that the particularly dynamic levels of hemolymph sugar levels may serve as a monitor of the forager honeybee energetic state. Therefore, there may be a pathway in forager bees via octopamine responsible for their precise precipitous regulation of appetite, but to determine cause and effect relationships further investigation is needed.
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Abbreviations
- AKH:
-
Adipokinetic hormone
- GC–MS:
-
Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry
- GLM:
-
Generalized linear model
- GRS:
-
Gustatory response score
- HPLC:
-
High-performance liquid chromatography
- MANOVA:
-
Multivariate analysis of variance
- PER assay:
-
Proboscis extension response assay
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Acknowledgements
We thank Mariann Pü, Brian Shields, Rebecca Zhou, Victor Le, and Elizabeth Eppley for assistance with hemolymph extractions, brain dissections, and data collection. The authors would also like to thank Dr. Kathleen Howard for providing access to her lyophilizer and assisting with its use. This work was supported by an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Fellowship award to CM, a Swarthmore College Surdna Summer Research Fellowship to KC, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Fellowship to NP.
Data availability
The datasets generated during the current study are available in the Open Science Framework repository, https://osf.io/h4c6e/.
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Mayack, C., Phalen, N., Carmichael, K. et al. Appetite is correlated with octopamine and hemolymph sugar levels in forager honeybees. J Comp Physiol A 205, 609–617 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-019-01352-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-019-01352-2