Nutrition-related regulation of the nurse-forager transition in honeybees

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Honeybees show a complex and fascinating division of labour. The transition from nursing tasks in the hive to foraging tasks outside the colony is particularly intriguing. The aim of this project is to test the hypothesis that the nurse-forager transition in honeybees is regulated by nutrition-related mechanisms. We aim to identify causal relationships between our candidate genes (Amfor, Amtar1, AmoctaR1), gustatory responsiveness and the timing of the nurse-forager transition by manipulation of gene expression and behavioural observations. Second, we want to understand the relationship between metabolism, expression of our candidate genes and the nurse-forager transition and will quantify abdominal lipids in dependence of manipulated gene expression and behavioural state. Thirdly, we will analyze the role of larval nutrition on gene expression and the timing of the nurse-forager transition in honeybees. We hypothesize that suboptimal larval diets will elicit an earlier transition to foraging, possibly through alteration of expression of our candidate genes and a precocious decrease in fat body lipids. Ultimately we want to answer the question if the same mechanisms which regulate individual nutrition have been exploited in the evolution of honeybee sociality to trigger phenotypic plasticity.