Could pre-imaginal olfactory experiences modify adult behavior in a social insect?

G.P. RAMÍREZ; A. ARENAS; W.M. FARINA

Encuentro; 2nd Meeting of the Latin American Association of Chemical Ecology; 2012

In honeybee colonies the information of exploited resources is transferred among nestmates through trophallaxis. These social interactions also involve larvae as foodrecipients. We wondered if appetitive olfactory experiences that occur during preimaginalstages influence post-metamorphic odor-mediated responses. Therefore wetested learning performance and memory retention in adults of 3/5 days old thatunderwent a pre-imaginal experience. This was done by means of a scented-sucrosesolution offered inside the hive and tested under the proboscis extension response (PER)paradigm. Results showed that precocious experiences increased PER levels toward thepre-exposed odor suggesting retention of information gained prior to the emergence.Interestingly, we also found high PER levels in adults tested to novel odors withperceptual similarities to the pre-exposed odor, which resembles generalization. Lastly,we found that even those bees that did not respond to the pre-exposed odor had animproved learning performance in a PER conditioning. Thus, pre-imaginal experiencesmay allow bees to assess food information very early in life with consequences on theiradult learning abilities.