Senescence in the worker honey bee Apis Mellifera.
Honey bees are social insects that exhibit striking caste-specific differences in longevity. Queen honey bees live on average 1-2 years, whereas workers live 2-6 weeks in the summer and about 20 weeks in the winter. It is not clear whether queen-worker differences in longevity are due to intrinsic physiological differences in the rate of senescence, to differential exposure to extrinsic factors such as predation and adverse environmental conditions, or both. To determine if the relatively short lifespan of worker bees involves senescence, we measured age-specific resistance to three different physiological stressors (starvation, thermal, and oxidative stress) while eliminating age-related differences in foraging activity and minimizing age-related differences in energy expenditure. Despite these manipulations, older worker bees were still significantly less resistant to all three stressors than were younger bees. These results indicate that the regulation of worker bee lifespan involves senescence, in addition to extrinsic factors.
Remolina
Silvia C
SC
Department of Animal Biology, 515 Morrill Hall, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801, USA. remolina@uiuc.edu
Hafez
Daniel M
DM
Robinson
Gene E
GE
Hughes
Kimberly A
KA
D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D001516:Bees / Q000378:metabolism / Q000502:physiology*; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D050356:Lipid Metabolism; D018384:Oxidative Stress
Exp Gerontol. 1999 Aug;34(5):621-31
10530788
Nature. 2000 Nov 9;408(6809):233-8
11089980
Exp Gerontol. 2000 Oct;35(8):957-69
11121683
Exp Gerontol. 2001 Apr;36(4-6):695-711
11295509
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2004 Mar 9;101(10):3486-9
14993600
Exp Gerontol. 2004 May;39(5):767-73
15130671
Annu Rev Entomol. 1992;37:637-65
1539941
Aging Cell. 2005 Feb;4(1):13-9
15659209
Mech Ageing Dev. 2005 Nov;126(11):1230-8
16139867
Exp Gerontol. 2005 Dec;40(12):939-47
16169181
J Exp Biol. 2005 Dec;208(Pt 24):4641-9
16326945
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2006 Jan 24;103(4):962-7
16418279
Mech Ageing Dev. 2006 Jul;127(7):647-51
16616306
Exp Gerontol. 2006 Sep;41(9):877-81
16891076
Curr Biol. 2007 Apr 17;17(8):R274-5
17437701
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2007 Apr 24;104(17):7128-33
17438290
Science. 1989 Oct 6;246(4926):109-12
17837770
Evolution. 1984 Sep;38(5):996-1003
28555795
Evolution. 1984 Sep;38(5):1004-1010
28555803
Genetica. 1993;91(1-3):89-98
8125281
Science. 1996 Jul 5;273(5271):80
8658201
Mol Cell Biol. 1999 Jan;19(1):216-28
9858546