The gut microbiome is associated with behavioural task in honey bees
Details
Download: Jones2018_Article_TheGutMicrobiomeIsAssociatedWi.pdf (1087.84 [Ko])
State: Public
Version: Final published version
State: Public
Version: Final published version
Serval ID
serval:BIB_60B583F32E6D
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Title
The gut microbiome is associated with behavioural task in honey bees
Journal
Insectes Sociaux
ISSN
1420-9098
ISSN-L
0020-1812
Publication state
Published
Issued date
2018
Peer-reviewed
Oui
Volume
65
Number
3
Pages
419-429
Language
english
Abstract
The gut microbiome is recognised as playing an integral role in the health and ecology of a wide variety of animal taxa. However, the relationship between social behavioural traits and the microbial community has received little attention. Honey bees are highly social and the workers perform different behavioural tasks in the colony that cause them to be exposed to different local environments. Here we examined whether the gut microbial community composition of worker honey bees is associated with the behavioural tasks they perform, and therefore also the local environment they are exposed to. We set up five observation hives, in which all workers were matched in age and observed the behaviour of marked bees in each colony over 4 days. The gut bacterial communities of bees seen performing predominantly foraging or predominantly in nest tasks were then characterised and compared based on amplicon sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene. Our results show that some core members of the unique honey bee gut bacterial community are represented in different relative abundances in bees performing different behavioural tasks. The differentially represented bacterial taxa include some thought to be important in carbohydrate metabolism and transport, and also linked to bee health. The results suggest an influence of task-related local environment exposure and diet on the honey bee gut microbial community and identify focal core taxa for further functional analyses.
Keywords
ut bacteria, Honey bee, Behaviour, Division of labour, Local environment, Diet
Pubmed
Web of science
Open Access
Yes
Create date
02/08/2018 14:44
Last modification date
20/08/2019 14:18