title: Starvation stress during larval development facilitates an adaptive response in adult worker honey bees (Apis mellifera L.).
abstract: Most organisms are constantly faced with environmental changes and stressors. In diverse organisms, there is an anticipatory mechanism during development that can program adult phenotypes. The adult phenotype would be adapted to the predicted environment that occurred during organism maturation. However, whether this anticipatory mechanism is present in eusocial species is questionable because eusocial organisms are largely shielded from exogenous conditions by their stable nest environment. In this study, we tested whether food deprivation during development of the honey bee (Apis mellifera), a eusocial insect model, can shift adult phenotypes to better cope with nutritional stress. After subjecting fifth instar worker larvae to short-term starvation, we measured nutrition-related morphology, starvation resistance, physiology, endocrinology and behavior in the adults. We found that the larval starvation caused adult honey bees to become more resilient toward starvation. Moreover, the adult bees were characterized by reduced ovary size, elevated glycogen stores and juvenile hormone (JH) titers, and decreased sugar sensitivity. These changes, in general, can help adult insects survive and reproduce in food-poor environments. Overall, we found for the first time support for an anticipatory mechanism in a eusocial species, the honey bee. Our results suggest that this mechanism may play a role in honey bee queen-worker differentiation and worker division of labor, both of which are related to the responses to nutritional stress.
authors.affiliation: School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA ying.wang.6@asu.edu.
authors.forename: Ying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA.
authors.forename: Osman
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Kaftanoglu
authors.affiliation: US Department of Agriculture, Arid-Land Agricultural Research Center, Maricopa, AZ 85138, USA.
authors.forename: Colin S
authors.initials: CS
authors.lastname: Brent
authors.affiliation: School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA Department of Entomology and Nematology, University of California Davis, Davis, CA 96616, USA Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM 87501, USA.
authors.forename: Robert E
authors.initials: RE
authors.lastname: Page
authors.affiliation: School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Department of Ecology and Natural Resource Management, Aas, N-1432, Norway.
authors.forename: Gro V
authors.initials: GV
authors.lastname: Amdam
mesh_terms: D000222:Adaptation, Physiological / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D001516:Bees / Q000196:embryology* / Q000502:physiology; D004734:Energy Metabolism / Q000502:physiology*; D006003:Glycogen / Q000378:metabolism*; D007605:Juvenile Hormones / Q000378:metabolism; D007814:Larva / Q000254:growth & development*; D050356:Lipid Metabolism; D012098:Reproduction / Q000502:physiology; D013217:Starvation
chemical_list: D007605:Juvenile Hormones; D006003:Glycogen
keywords: Adaptive response; Anticipatory mechanism; Division of labor; Eusocial species; Glucose; Glycogen; Lipid; Nutrition; Stress response; Trehalose