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

蜜蜂表现出复杂而迷人的劳动分工。从蜂巢内的护理任务到聚居地外的觅食任务的转变特别有趣。这个项目的目的是测试假设，即蜜蜂的护理-觅食过渡是由营养相关机制调节的。我们的目标是通过操纵基因表达和行为观察来确定候选基因（Amfor, Amtar1, AmoctaR1），味觉反应和护理-觅食转换时间之间的因果关系。其次，我们想要了解代谢、候选基因的表达与护士-觅食者转变之间的关系，并将量化腹部脂质对操纵基因表达和行为状态的依赖。第三，我们将分析幼虫营养对基因表达的作用以及蜜蜂从看护到觅食的转变时间。我们假设，次优的幼虫饮食可能会通过改变我们的候选基因的表达和脂肪体脂质的过早减少，从而导致幼虫更早地过渡到觅食。最终，我们想要回答这样一个问题：在蜜蜂社会性的进化中，是否利用了调节个体营养的相同机制来触发表型可塑性。

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.