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Age and rearing environment interact in the retention of early olfactory memories in honeybees

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Abstract

Due to the changing behavioral contexts at which social insects are exposed during the adult lifespan, they are ideal models to analyze the effect of particular sensory stimuli during young adulthood on later behavior. Specifically, our goal is to understand early influences on later foraging behavior. For that, olfactory memories were established by worker honeybees to different pre-foraging ages using either (1) classical conditioning in the proboscis extension response (PER) paradigm or (2) the offering of scented-sugar solution under different rearing conditions. By testing long-term memories (LTM) through a single PER test in workers of foraging ages (17–25 days), we found that retention of the early olfactory memories in honey bees is age-dependent and not time-dependent. Independently of the environmental conditions in which they were reared (laboratory cages or hives), bees were able to retain food-odor association from 5 days after emergence, but rarely before. In most experiments we observed a bi-modal pattern of response: bees exposed to scented-food at 5–8 and 13–16 days showed better retention than those exposed at 9–12 days. These differences disappeared for bees reared in hives. Retrieval of LTMs depending on the timing and the continuous inputs of appropriate sensory stimuli are discussed.

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Abbreviations

PER:

Proboscis extension response

CS:

Conditioned stimulus

LTM:

Long-term memory

PHE:

Phenylacetaldehyde

CR:

Conditioned responses

US:

Unconditioned stimulus

LIO:

Linalool

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to V. M. Fernandez for her support during the experiments with free-flying bees. We are also indebted to R. Josens, S. Mc Cabe and two anonymous referees for their valuable comments and suggestions on an early version of this manuscript. This study was supported by funds from ANPCYT (01-12319) and University of Buenos Aires (X 036). The experiments comply with the “Principles of animal care”, publication No. 86-23, revised 1985 of the National Institute of Health, and also with the current laws of the country in which the experiments were performed.

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Correspondence to Walter M. Farina.

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Arenas, A., Farina, W.M. Age and rearing environment interact in the retention of early olfactory memories in honeybees. J Comp Physiol A 194, 629–640 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-008-0337-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-008-0337-z

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