Linked Life Data

20688074

Source:http://linkedlifedata.com/resource/pubmed/id/20688074

Statements in which the resource exists as a subject.
PredicateObject
rdf:type
lifeskim:mentions
pubmed:issue
12
pubmed:dateCreated
2010-10-29
pubmed:abstractText
Honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) workers are essentially sterile females that are used to study how complex social behavior develops. Workers perform nest tasks, like nursing larvae, prior to field tasks, like foraging. Despite worker sterility, this behavioral progression correlates with ovary size: workers with larger ovaries (many ovary filaments) start foraging at younger ages on average. It is untested, however, whether the correlation confers a causal relationship between ovary size and behavioral development. Here, we successfully grafted supernumerary ovaries into worker bees to produce an artificial increase in the amount of ovary tissue. We next measured fat body mRNA levels for the yolk precursor gene vitellogenin, which influences honey bee behavioral development and can correlate with ovary size. Vitellogenin was equally expressed in surgical controls and bees with supernumerary ovaries, leading us to predict that these groups would be characterized by equal behavior. Contrary to our prediction, bees with supernumerary ovaries showed accelerated behavioral development compared to surgical controls, which behaved like reference bees that were not treated surgically. To explore this result we monitored fat body expression levels of a putative ecdysteroid-response gene, HR46, which is genetically linked to ovary size in workers. Our data establish that social insect worker behavior can be directly influenced by ovaries, and that HR46 expression changes with ovary size independent of vitellogenin.
pubmed:grant
pubmed:language
eng
pubmed:journal
pubmed:citationSubset
IM
pubmed:chemical
pubmed:status
MEDLINE
pubmed:month
Dec
pubmed:issn
1879-1611
pubmed:author
pubmed:copyrightInfo
Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
pubmed:issnType
Electronic
pubmed:volume
56
pubmed:owner
NLM
pubmed:authorsComplete
Y
pubmed:pagination
1816-24
pubmed:meshHeading
pubmed:year
2010
pubmed:articleTitle
Surgically increased ovarian mass in the honey bee confirms link between reproductive physiology and worker behavior.
pubmed:affiliation
School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA. ying.wang.6@asu.edu
pubmed:publicationType
Journal Article, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't, Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural