PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Alison McAfee
AU  - Abigail Chapman
AU  - Immacolata Iovinella
AU  - Ylonna Gallagher-Kurtzke
AU  - Troy F. Collins
AU  - Heather Higo
AU  - Lufiani L. Madilao
AU  - Paolo Pelosi
AU  - Leonard J. Foster
TI  - Death pheromones triggering hygienic behavior in honey bees (<em>Apis mellifera</em> L.)
AID  - 10.1101/231902
DP  - 2017 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 231902
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/12/10/231902.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/12/10/231902.full
AB  - Eusocial insects live in teeming societies with thousands of their kin. In this crowded environment, workers combat disease by removing or burying their dead or diseased nestmates. For honey bees, we found that hygienic brood-removal behavior is triggered by two odors–β-ocimene and oleic acid–which are released from brood upon death. β-ocimene is a co-opted pheromone that normally signals larval food-begging, whereas oleic acid is a conserved necromone across arthropod taxa. Interestingly, the odor blend induces hygienic behavior more consistently than either odor alone. We suggest that the volatile β-ocimene flags hygienic workers’ attention, while oleic acid is the death cue, triggering removal. Hygienic bees detect and remove brood with these odors faster than non-hygienic bees, and both molecules are ligands for hygienic behavior-associated odorant binding proteins. These are key mechanistic insights into some of the molecular interactions that govern disease resistance in a domesticated eusocial insect.