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The Effects of Fat Body Tyramine Level on Gustatory Responsiveness of Honeybees (Apis mellifera) Differ between Behavioral Castes

Overview of attention for article published in Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience, August 2017
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Title
The Effects of Fat Body Tyramine Level on Gustatory Responsiveness of Honeybees (Apis mellifera) Differ between Behavioral Castes
Published in
Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience, August 2017
DOI 10.3389/fnsys.2017.00055
Pubmed ID
Authors

Ricarda Scheiner, Brian V. Entler, Andrew B. Barron, Christina Scholl, Markus Thamm

Abstract

Division of labor is a hallmark of social insects. In the honeybee (Apis mellifera) each sterile female worker performs a series of social tasks. The most drastic changes in behavior occur when a nurse bee, who takes care of the brood and the queen in the hive, transitions to foraging behavior. Foragers provision the colony with pollen, nectar or water. Nurse bees and foragers differ in numerous behaviors, including responsiveness to gustatory stimuli. Differences in gustatory responsiveness, in turn, might be involved in regulating division of labor through differential sensory response thresholds. Biogenic amines are important modulators of behavior. Tyramine and octopamine have been shown to increase gustatory responsiveness in honeybees when injected into the thorax, thereby possibly triggering social organization. So far, most of the experiments investigating the role of amines on gustatory responsiveness have focused on the brain. The potential role of the fat body in regulating sensory responsiveness and division of labor has large been neglected. We here investigated the role of the fat body in modulating gustatory responsiveness through tyramine signaling in different social roles of honeybees. We quantified levels of tyramine, tyramine receptor gene expression and the effect of elevating fat body tyramine titers on gustatory responsiveness in both nurse bees and foragers. Our data suggest that elevating the tyramine titer in the fat body pharmacologically increases gustatory responsiveness in foragers, but not in nurse bees. This differential effect of tyramine on gustatory responsiveness correlates with a higher natural gustatory responsiveness of foragers, with a higher tyramine receptor (Amtar1) mRNA expression in fat bodies of foragers and with lower baseline tyramine titers in fat bodies of foragers compared to those of nurse bees. We suggest that differential tyramine signaling in the fat body has an important role in the plasticity of division of labor through changing gustatory responsiveness.

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Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 42 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 42 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 15 36%
Researcher 5 12%
Student > Bachelor 4 10%
Student > Master 3 7%
Professor 2 5%
Other 4 10%
Unknown 9 21%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 15 36%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 8 19%
Neuroscience 3 7%
Nursing and Health Professions 2 5%
Earth and Planetary Sciences 1 2%
Other 1 2%
Unknown 12 29%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 2. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 30 August 2017.
All research outputs
#16,923,362
of 25,660,026 outputs
Outputs from Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience
#942
of 1,410 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#199,072
of 328,347 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience
#17
of 21 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,660,026 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 32nd percentile – i.e., 32% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,410 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 11.3. This one is in the 27th percentile – i.e., 27% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 328,347 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one is in the 36th percentile – i.e., 36% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
We're also able to compare this research output to 21 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 19th percentile – i.e., 19% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.