| Title: | Prior Experience with Food Reward Influences the Behavioral Responses of the Honeybee Apis mellifera and the Bumblebee Bombus lantschouensis to Tomato Floral Scent |
| Author(s): | Zhang H; Shan S; Gu S; Huang X; Li Z; Khashaveh A; Zhang Y; |
| Address: | "State Key Laboratory for Biology of Plant Diseases and Insect Pests, Institute of Plant Protection, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100193, China. Key Laboratory for Insect-Pollinator Biology of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Institute of Apicultural Research, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100093, China. Department of Entomology, College of Plant Protection, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100193, China" |
| ISSN/ISBN: | 2075-4450 (Print) 2075-4450 (Electronic) 2075-4450 (Linking) |
| Abstract: | "Bee responses to floral scent are usually influenced by both innate biases and prior experience. Honeybees are less attracted than bumblebees to tomato flowers. However, little is known about how tomato floral scent regulates the foraging behaviors of honeybees and bumblebees. In this study, the foraging behaviors of the honeybee Apis mellifera and the bumblebee Bombus lantschouensis on tomato flowers in greenhouses were investigated. Whether the two bee species exhibit different responses to tomato floral scent and how innate biases and prior experience influence bee choice behavior were examined. In the greenhouses, honeybees failed to collect pollen from tomato flowers, and their foraging activities decreased significantly over days. Additionally, neither naive honeybees nor naive bumblebees showed a preference for tomato floral scent in a Y-tube olfactometer. However, foraging experience in the tomato greenhouses helped bumblebees develop a strong preference for the scent, whereas honeybees with foraging experience continued to show aversion to tomato floral scent. After learning to associate tomato floral scent with a sugar reward in proboscis extension response (PER) assays, both bee species exhibited a preference for tomato floral scent in Y-tube olfactometers. The findings indicated that prior experience with a food reward strongly influenced bee preference for tomato floral scent" |
| Keywords: | behavior preference bumblebee honeybee pollination prior experience tomato floral scent; |
| Notes: | "PubMed-not-MEDLINEZhang, Hong Shan, Shuang Gu, Shaohua Huang, Xinzheng Li, Zibo Khashaveh, Adel Zhang, Yongjun eng CAAS-ASTIP-2015-IAR/Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation Program/ 32002238/National Natural Science Foundation of China/ 31672500/National Natural Science Foundation of China/ 31972338/National Natural Science Foundation of China/ 2017YFD0201900/National Key Research and Development Program of China/ 2017YFD0200400/National Key Research and Development Program of China/ Switzerland 2020/12/18 Insects. 2020 Dec 14; 11(12):884. doi: 10.3390/insects11120884" |
