Genetic basis of hygienic behavior in Apis mellifera (Hymenoptera: apidae): a candidate gene approach

SCANNAPIECO ALEJANDRA CARLA; MANNINO MARIA CONSTANZA; PARREÑO MARIA ALEJANDRA; MARTINEZ ANALÍA; LANZAVECCHIA SILVIA BEATRIZ; PALACIO ALEJANDRA; CLADERA JORGE LUIS

Daegu

Congreso; XXIV International Congress of Entomology- New era in entomology; 2012

24th International Congress of Entomology Organizing Committee

The honey bee (Apis mellifera, Insecta: Hymenoptera) is an important economic insect as it is the world’s principal crop pollinator and honey producer (Burgett et al., 2004). These activities have been threatened by several pathogens that cause devastating harm in honey bee colonies. To tolerate to brood diseases, the honey bee colonies have developed an important form of social immunity, the hygienic behavior (Wilson-Rich et al., 2009). This behavior is described as the ability of the middle-aged workers to detect, uncap and remove diseased brood from the colony before the pathogen is transmissible, thus reducing the spread of infection inside the colony. Previous studies showed that individual bees that express the hygienic behavior (hygienic bees) have a higher olfactory sensitivity and responsiveness than non-hygienic bees and are notably able to discriminate between odors of healthy and diseased brood at a lower stimulus level (Masterman et al., 2000; 2001; Gramacho and Spivak, 2003), This olfactory sensitivity would be given by the modulator effects of octopamine (Goode et al., 2006), a neuromodulator that plays a major role regulating insect behaviors, such as learning and memory processes in honey bees (Farroaqui et al., 2003). Although the hygienic behavior is a genetic trait though to be controlled by several loci (e.g. Gramacho,1999; Lapidge et al., 2002; Oxley et al., 2010), little is known on the genetic basis of this character. Recently, differences in expression levels for genes involved in neuronal sensitivity and olfaction were associated with the tolerance to the parasitic mite Varroa destructor, the most serious pest of the western honey, and may be related to increased hygienic behavior (Navajas et al., 2008). The aim of the present study was to continue exploring the genetic basis of hygienic behavior in honey bees by analyzing the gene expression profiles of octopamine receptor (our candidate gene) in hygienic and non-hygienic bees from Argentinean colonies selected for hygienic behavior.