Jennifer M. Tsuruda1, M. Kim Fondrk2, and Robert E. Page2. (1) Department of Entomology, University of California, Davis, One Shields Ave, Davis, CA 95616, (2) School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, P.O. Box 874501, Tempe, AZ 85287-4501
Honey bees are a model system for studying foraging behavior. Sensory responsiveness affects individual foraging behavior as well as the collective foraging decisions of entire honey bee colonies. Sucrose perception has been widely tested in honey bees using the Proboscis Extension Response (PER) test. A recently developed light assay allows the investigation of another sensory modality, vision. Our goals were to (1) qualitatively and quantitatively measure light responsiveness in different types of bees and (2) to correlate light responsiveness to sucrose responsiveness. In these studies, wildtype foragers and preforager bees of selectively bred strains were tested and scored for their perception of several sucrose concentrations and light intensities. Mann-Whitney U-tests were used for comparisons between forager types and between strains and correlations were analyzed using Spearman Rank. There were positive relationships between scores for these two sensory modalities. Wildtype pollen foragers had higher scores for responsiveness to sucrose and light than wildtype nonpollen foragers. Pollen foragers also responded more rapidly to lower intensities of light than nonpollen foragers. In the selectively bred bees, high strain preforagers had higher scores for both sucrose and light responsiveness than low strain preforagers. High strain bees responded to lower intensities of light in less time than nonpollen foragers, but took more time to respond to higher intensities of light. These PER tests and light assays demonstrate a positive relationship between responses to light and sucrose with respect to foraging behavior and genotype. We suggest that responsiveness to light and sucrose could be components of a pollen hoarding behavioral syndrome.
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