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Chem Senses

Title:		Olfactory discrimination ability and odor structure-activity relationships in honeybees
Author(s):		Laska M; Galizia CG; Giurfa M; Menzel R;
Address:		"Institut fur Medizinische Psychologie, Ludwg-Maximilians-Universitat Munchen, Germany. Laska@imp.med.uni-muenchen.de"
Journal Title:		Chem Senses
Year:		1999
Volume:		24
Issue:		4
Page Number:		429 - 438
DOI:		10.1093/chemse/24.4.429
ISSN/ISBN:		0379-864X (Print) 0379-864X (Linking)
Abstract:		"Using the training procedure introduced by von Frisch in 1919, we tested the ability of free-flying honeybees to discriminate a conditioning odor from an array of 44 simultaneously presented substances. The stimuli included homologous series of aliphatic alcohols, aldehydes and ketones, isomeric forms of some of these substances, as well as several terpenes and odor mixtures, and thus comprised stimuli of varying degrees of structural similarity to any conditioning odor. We found (i) that the honeybees significantly distinguished between 97.0% of the 1848 odor pairs tested, thus showing an excellent discrimination performance when tested in a free-flying situation with an array of structurally related substances; (ii) a significant negative correlation between discrimination performance and structural similarity of odorants in terms of differences in carbon chain length with all aliphatic substance classes tested; (iii) that both the position and type of a functional group also affected discriminability of odorants in a substance class-specific manner; and (iv) striking similarities in odor structure-activity relationships between honeybees and human and nonhuman primates tested previously on a subset of substances employed here. Our findings demonstrate that the similarities found in the structural organization of the olfactory systems of insects and vertebrates are paralleled by striking similarities in relative discrimination abilities. This strongly suggests that similar mechanisms of odor coding and discrimination may underlie olfaction in vertebrates and insects"
Keywords:		"Animals Bees/*physiology Conditioning, Classical *Discrimination Learning *Odorants Pheromones Smell/*physiology Structure-Activity Relationship;"
Notes:		"MedlineLaska, M Galizia, C G Giurfa, M Menzel, R eng Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't England 1999/09/10 Chem Senses. 1999 Aug; 24(4):429-38. doi: 10.1093/chemse/24.4.429"