Faculty
Biology
Supervisor Name
Graham Thompson
Keywords
Brain-Gut Axis, Microbiome, Honeybee, Behaviour
Description
Gut microbiota can influence host behaviour through a functional axis that connects the health and activity of the gut to the brain. For social animals, the gut-brain axis takes on an added complexity if its influence scales-up to the collective behaviour of entire colonies (Figure 1). In this study, we describe three behavioural assays focused on the Western honeybee that attempt to detect the influence of a brain-gut axis within individual worker bees and within the colonies in which they live and function as altruistic helpers (Figures 2-4). We expect antibiotic depletion or probiotic enrichment of gut fauna to affect worker behaviour in predictable and potentially tractable ways (Figure 1), for example, by improving or diminishing the activity of workers relative to untreated control bees.
Acknowledgements
This poster was a collaborative effort between myself and fellow USRI student Julia Lacika, outlining work done to further PhD Anna Chernyshova's project.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
Document Type
Poster
The Brain-Gut Axis of Honey Bees: Testing how Microbiota Affect Individual and Social Behaviour
Gut microbiota can influence host behaviour through a functional axis that connects the health and activity of the gut to the brain. For social animals, the gut-brain axis takes on an added complexity if its influence scales-up to the collective behaviour of entire colonies (Figure 1). In this study, we describe three behavioural assays focused on the Western honeybee that attempt to detect the influence of a brain-gut axis within individual worker bees and within the colonies in which they live and function as altruistic helpers (Figures 2-4). We expect antibiotic depletion or probiotic enrichment of gut fauna to affect worker behaviour in predictable and potentially tractable ways (Figure 1), for example, by improving or diminishing the activity of workers relative to untreated control bees.