GENETIC ANALYSIS OF LEARNING PERFORMANCE

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Studies outlined below will investigate the quantitative and molecular genetic bases for variation in learning performance in the honey bee, Apis mellifera. Research into the bases of learning and memory in invertebrates such as mollusks and insects has demonstrated that fundamental properties of behavioral plasticity developed in studies of vertebrates apply across a broad phylogenetic spectrum. Yet, the genetic bases for learning traits are only beginning to be studied. Honey bees provide excellent opportunities for studying genetic factors that influence learning behavior because of the potential to apply several powerful behavioral paradigms for studying learning in vertebrates. The series of proposed studies will take advantage of the ability to train and analyze honey bee drones (males). Drones arise from unfertilized eggs and are thus haploid recombinants of the maternal genotype. Quantitative genetic selection on a haploid proceeds faster than it would on a diploid. Furthermore, linkage mapping from haploid genotypes using a map recently developed from a series of RAPD primers will not have the complications of such mapping using diploid genotypes. The specific aims of the studies are: * To further determine the quantitative genetic bases underlying variability in olfactory learning performance. Lines will be selected for fast versus slow reversal learning performance relative to unselected control lines. Use of this conditioning protocol and inclusion of appropriate control procedures will allow us to test whether associative learning performance can be selected without correlated responses in sensitization or motor systems. * To investigate the molecular genetic background using a linkage map established from RAPD genetic markers. These kinds of analyses will be carried out in recombinant F2 drone progeny of hybrid queens, in which spurious correlations due to founder effects in small base populations would be attenuated.