ORCID Profile
0000-0002-2463-2040
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CNRS
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Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 12-03-2015
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 22-12-2020
DOI: 10.1101/2020.12.22.423907
Abstract: Central place foraging pollinators, such as bees, tend to learn multi-destination routes (traplines) to efficiently visit known feeding locations and return to their nest. To what extent these routing behaviours are shared across species is unknown. Here we ran laboratory experiments to compare trapline formation and efficiency by foragers of two social bee species that differ in their collective foraging strategies: the solo foraging bumblebee Bombus terrestris and the mass foraging honey bee Apis mellifera . In a simple routing task with four artificial flowers, both bumblebees and honey bees developed a stable route, although honey bees were slower and less efficient to do so. In a more complex routing task with six flowers, only bumblebees developed a stable route. Honey bees took a longer time to discover all flowers and never integrated them in a single route. Simulations of a model of trapline formation show that these inter-specific differences can be replicated by adjusting the strength of a single learning parameter. Comparing bumblebees and honey bees in the same experimental conditions thus revealed key differences in their spatial foraging strategies, potentially driven by social constraints.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 21-02-2019
Publisher: The Royal Society
Date: 13-08-2018
Abstract: Behavioural and cognitive processes play important roles in mediating an in idual's interactions with its environment. Yet, while there is a vast literature on repeatable in idual differences in behaviour, relatively little is known about the repeatability of cognitive performance. To further our understanding of the evolution of cognition, we gathered 44 studies on in idual performance of 25 species across six animal classes and used meta-analysis to assess whether cognitive performance is repeatable. We compared repeatability ( R ) in performance (1) on the same task presented at different times (temporal repeatability), and (2) on different tasks that measured the same putative cognitive ability (contextual repeatability). We also addressed whether R estimates were influenced by seven extrinsic factors (moderators): type of cognitive performance measurement, type of cognitive task, delay between tests, origin of the subjects, experimental context, taxonomic class and publication status. We found support for both temporal and contextual repeatability of cognitive performance, with mean R estimates ranging between 0.15 and 0.28. Repeatability estimates were mostly influenced by the type of cognitive performance measures and publication status. Our findings highlight the widespread occurrence of consistent inter-in idual variation in cognition across a range of taxa which, like behaviour, may be associated with fitness outcomes. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Causes and consequences of in idual differences in cognitive abilities’.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Date: 12-2010
DOI: 10.1086/656867
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 16-06-2021
DOI: 10.1101/2021.06.15.448345
Abstract: Whether animals can actively avoid food contaminated with harmful compounds through taste is key to understand their ecotoxicological risks. Here, we investigated the ability of honey bees to perceive and avoid food resources contaminated with common metal pollutants known to impair their cognition at low concentrations (lead, zinc and arsenic). In behavioural assays, bees did not discriminate food contaminated with field-realistic concentrations of these metals. Bees only reduced their food consumption and displayed aversive behaviours at very high, unrealistic concentrations of lead and zinc that they perceived through their antennae and proboscis. Electrophysiological analyses confirmed that high concentrations of the three metals in sucrose solution induced a reduced neural response to sucrose in their antennae. Our results thus show that honey bees can avoid metal pollutants in their food, but only at very high concentrations above regulatory levels. Their inability to detect lower, yet harmful, concentrations in a field-realistic range suggests that metal pollution is a major threat for pollinators.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 17-04-2023
Abstract: Environmental stressors frequently have sublethal consequences for animals, often affecting the mean of phenotypic traits in populations. However, effects on inter‐in idual variability are poorly understood. Since phenotypic variability is the basis for adaptation, any change due to stressors may have important implications for population resilience. Here, we explored this possibility in bees by analysing raw datasets from 23 studies (5618 bees) in which in iduals were first exposed to stressors and then tested for cognitive tasks. While all types of stressors decreased the mean cognitive performance of bees, they increased cognitive variability. Focusing on 14 pesticide studies, we found that the mode of exposure to stressors and the dose were critical. Mean cognitive performance was more affected by a chronic exposure than by an acute exposure. Yet, cognitive variability increased with increasing doses following both exposure durations. Policy implications. Current guidelines for the authorization of plant protection products on the European market prioritize acute over chronic toxicity assessments on non‐target organisms. By overlooking the consequences of a chronic exposure, regulatory authorities may register new products or doses that are harmful to bee populations. Our findings call for more research on stress‐induced phenotypic variation and its incorporation into policy guidelines to help identify levels and modes of exposure animals can cope with.
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 05-04-2019
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 10-12-2020
DOI: 10.1101/2020.12.09.418038
Abstract: Automated quantification of the behaviour of freely moving animals is increasingly needed in ethology, ecology, genetics and evolution. State-of-the-art approaches often require tags to identify animals, high computational power for data collection and processing, and are sensitive to environmental conditions, which limits their large-scale utilisation. Here we introduce a new automated tracking system based on millimetre-wave radars for real time robust and high precision monitoring of untagged animals. To validate our system, we tracked 64 sheep in a standard indoor behavioural test used for genetic selection. First, we show that the proposed radar application is faster and more accurate than conventional video and infrared tracking systems. Next, we illustrate how new behavioural estimators can be derived from the radar data to assess personality traits in sheep for behavioural phenotyping. Finally, we demonstrate that radars can be used for movement tracking at larger spatial scales, in the field, by adjusting operating frequency and radiated electromagnetic power. Millimetre-wave radars thus hold considerable promises for high-throughput recording of the behaviour of animals with various sizes and locomotor modes, in different types of environments.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 08-04-2012
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 2015
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 11-12-2021
DOI: 10.1101/2020.12.11.421305
Abstract: Environmental pollutants can exert sublethal deleterious effects on animals. These include disruption of cognitive functions underlying crucial behaviours. While agrochemicals have been identified as a major threat to pollinators, other compounds, such as heavy metals that are often found in complex mixtures, have largely been overlooked. Here, we assessed the impact of acute exposure to field-realistic concentrations of lead, copper, arsenic, and their combinations, on honey bee learning and memory. All treatments involving single metals slowed down appetitive learning and disrupted memory retrieval at 24 h. Importantly, combinations of these metals induced additive negative effects on both processes, suggesting common pathways of toxicity. Our results highlight the need to further assess the risks of heavy metal pollution on invertebrates and to their associated ecosystem services. Honey bees displayed reduced learning and memory performances following acute exposure to arsenic, copper or lead. Exposure to combinations of these metals induced additive effects.
Publisher: The Company of Biologists
Date: 2016
DOI: 10.1242/JEB.142257
Abstract: Animals, from insects to human, select foods to regulate their acquisition of key nutrients in amounts and balances maximising fitness. In species where the nutrition of juveniles depends on parents, adults must make challenging foraging decisions that simultaneously address their own nutrient needs as well as those of the progeny. Here we examined how fruit flies Drosophila melanogaster, a species where in iduals eat and lay eggs in decaying fruits, integrate feeding decisions (in idual nutrition) and oviposition decisions (offspring nutrition) when foraging. Using cafeteria assays with artificial diets varying in concentrations and ratios of protein to carbohydrates, we show that Drosophila females exhibit complex foraging patterns, alternating between laying eggs on high carbohydrate foods and feeding on foods with different nutrient contents depending on their own nutritional state. Although larvae showed faster development on high protein foods, both survival and learning performances were higher on balanced foods. We suggest that the apparent mismatch between the oviposition preference of females for high carbohydrate foods and the high performances of larvae on balanced foods reflects a natural situation where high carbohydrate ripened fruits gradually enrich in proteinaceous yeast as they start rotting, thereby yielding optimal nutrition for the developing larvae. Our findings that animals with rudimentary parental care uncouple feeding and egg-laying decisions in order to balance their own diet and provide a nutritionally optimal environment to their progeny reveals unsuspected levels of complexity in the nutritional ecology of parent-offspring interactions.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 03-2020
Publisher: The Royal Society
Date: 03-07-2017
Abstract: Nutrition impinges on virtually all aspects of an animal's life, including social interactions. Recent advances in nutritional ecology show how social animals often trade-off in idual nutrition and group cohesion when foraging in simplified experimental environments. Here, we explore how the spatial structure of the nutritional landscape influences these complex collective foraging dynamics in ecologically realistic environments. We introduce an in idual-based model integrating key concepts of nutritional geometry, collective animal behaviour and spatial ecology to study the nutritional behaviour of animal groups in large heterogeneous environments containing foods with different abundance, patchiness and nutritional composition. Simulations show that the spatial distribution of foods constrains the ability of in iduals to balance their nutrient intake, the lowest performance being attained in environments with small isolated patches of nutritionally complementary foods. Social interactions improve in idual regulatory performances when food is scarce and clumpy, but not when it is abundant and scattered, suggesting that collective foraging is favoured in some environments only. These social effects are further lified if foragers adopt flexible search strategies based on their in idual nutritional state. Our model provides a conceptual and predictive framework for developing new empirically testable hypotheses in the emerging field of social nutrition. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Physiological determinants of social behaviour in animals’.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 08-2017
DOI: 10.1111/EEN.12434
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 06-04-2023
Abstract: Pollinator declines have raised major concerns for the maintenance of bio ersity and food security, calling for a better understanding of environmental factors that affect their health. Here we used hemolymph analysis to monitor the health status of Western honey bees Apis mellifera. We evaluated the intraspecific proteomic variations and key biological activities of the hemolymph of bees collected from four Egyptian localities characterized by different food ersities and abundances. Overall, the lowest protein concentrations and the weakest biological activities (cytotoxicity, antimicrobial and antioxidant properties) were recorded in the hemolymph of bees artificially fed sucrose solution and no pollen. By contrast, the highest protein concentrations and biological activities were recorded in bees that had the opportunity to feed on various natural resources. While future studies should expand comparisons to honey bee populations exposed to more different diets and localities, our results suggest hemolymph s les can be used as reliable indicators of bee nutrition.
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 22-06-2016
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Date: 28-11-2020
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2010
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 21-05-2019
DOI: 10.1093/CZ/ZOZ026
Abstract: Animals have evolved foraging strategies to acquire blends of nutrients that maximize fitness traits. In social insects, nutrient regulation is complicated by the fact that few in iduals, the foragers, must address the ergent nutritional needs of all colony members simultaneously, including other workers, the reproductives, and the brood. Here we used 3D nutritional geometry design to examine how bumblebee workers regulate their collection of 3 major macronutrients in the presence and absence of brood. We provided small colonies artificial nectars (liquid diets) and pollens (solid diets) varying in their compositions of proteins, lipids, and carbohydrates during 2 weeks. Colonies given a choice between nutritionally complementary diets self-selected foods to reach a target ratio of 71% proteins, 6% carbohydrates, and 23% lipids, irrespective of the presence of brood. When confined to a single nutritionally imbalanced solid diet, colonies without brood regulated lipid collection and over-collected protein relative to this target ratio, whereas colonies with brood regulated both lipid and protein collection. This brood effect on the regulation of nutrient collection by workers suggests that protein levels are critical for larval development. Our results highlight the importance of considering bee nutrition as a multidimensional phenomenon to better assess the effects of environmental impoverishment and malnutrition on population declines.
Publisher: The Royal Society
Date: 07-2019
Abstract: How animals explore and acquire knowledge from the environment is a key question in movement ecology. For pollinators that feed on multiple small replenishing nectar resources, the challenge is to learn efficient foraging routes while dynamically acquiring spatial information about new resource locations. Here, we use the behavioural mapping t-Stochastic Neighbouring Embedding algorithm and Shannon entropy to statistically analyse previously published s ling patterns of bumblebees feeding on artificial flowers in the field. We show that bumblebees modulate foraging excursions into distinctive behavioural strategies, characterizing the trade-off dynamics between (i) visiting and exploiting flowers close to the nest, (ii) searching for new routes and resources, and (iii) exploiting learned flower visitation sequences. Experienced bees combine these behavioural strategies even after they find an optimal route minimizing travel distances between flowers. This behavioural variability may help balancing energy costs–benefits and facilitate rapid adaptation to changing environments and the integration of more profitable resources in their routes.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 10-12-2019
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 28-02-2020
DOI: 10.1101/2020.02.27.967455
Abstract: Parasites alter the physiology and behaviour of their hosts. In domestic honey bees, the microsporidia Nosema ceranae induces an energetic stress and impairs the behaviour of foragers, potentially leading to colony collapse. Whether this emerging parasite similarly affects wild pollinators is little understood because of the low success rates of experimental infection protocols. Here we established a new apporach for infecting bumblebees ( Bombus terrestris ) with controlled amounts of N. ceranae , by briefly exposing in idual bumblebees to a sucrose solution containing parasite spores, before feeding them with artificial diets. We validated our protocol by testing the effect of two spore dosages and two diets varying in their protein to carbohydrate ratio, on the prevalence of the parasite (proportion of infected bees), the intensity of infection (spore count in the gut), and the survival of bumblebees. Insects fed a low-protein high-carbohydrate diet showed highest parasite prevalence (up to 70%) but lived longest, suggesting that immunity and survival of bumblebees are maximised at different protein to carbohydrate ratios. Spore dosage had no effect on parasite infection rate and host survival. The identification of experimental conditions for successfully infecting bumblebees with N. ceranae in the lab will facilitate investigations of the sub-lethal effects of this parasite on the behaviour and cognition of wild pollinators.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Date: 12-2010
DOI: 10.1086/657042
Abstract: Animals collecting resources that replenish over time often visit patches in predictable sequences called traplines. Despite the widespread nature of this strategy, we still know little about how spatial memory develops and guides in iduals toward suitable routes. Here, we investigate whether flower visitation sequences by bumblebees Bombus terrestris simply reflect the order in which flowers were discovered or whether they result from more complex navigational strategies enabling bees to optimize their foraging routes. We analyzed bee flight movements in an array of four artificial flowers maximizing interfloral distances. Starting from a single patch, we sequentially added three new patches so that if bees visited them in the order in which they originally encountered flowers, they would follow a long (suboptimal) route. Bees' tendency to visit patches in their discovery order decreased with experience. Instead, they optimized their flight distances by rearranging flower visitation sequences. This resulted in the development of a primary route (trapline) and two or three less frequently used secondary routes. Bees consistently used these routes after overnight breaks while occasionally exploring novel possibilities. We discuss how maintaining some level of route flexibility could allow traplining animals to cope with dynamic routing problems, analogous to the well-known traveling salesman problem.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 04-2021
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 09-2021
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 14-01-2015
DOI: 10.1111/ELE.12406
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 04-2017
DOI: 10.1016/J.TREE.2016.12.009
Abstract: Bee populations are declining in the industrialized world, raising concerns for the sustainable pollination of crops. Pesticides, pollutants, parasites, diseases, and malnutrition have all been linked to this problem. We consider here neurobiological, ecological, and evolutionary reasons why bees are particularly vulnerable to these environmental stressors. Central-place foraging on flowers demands advanced capacities of learning, memory, and navigation. However, even at low intensity levels, many stressors damage the bee brain, disrupting key cognitive functions needed for effective foraging, with dramatic consequences for brood development and colony survival. We discuss how understanding the relationships between the actions of stressors on the nervous system, in idual cognitive impairments, and colony decline can inform constructive interventions to sustain bee populations.
Publisher: Elsevier
Date: 2019
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2018
DOI: 10.1016/J.COIS.2018.05.003
Abstract: Nutrition is thought to be a major driver of social evolution, yet empirical support for this hypothesis is scarce. Here we illustrate how conceptual advances in nutritional ecology illuminate some of the mechanisms by which nutrition mediates social interactions in insects. We focus on experiments and models of nutritional geometry and argue that they provide a powerful means for comparing nutritional phenomena across species exhibiting various social ecologies. This approach, initially developed to study the nutritional behaviour of in idual insects, has been increasingly used to study insect groups and societies, leading to the emerging field of social nutrition. We discuss future directions for exploring how these nutritional mechanisms may influence major social transitions in insects and other animals.
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 19-07-2011
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 06-12-2021
DOI: 10.3390/S21238140
Abstract: The automated quantification of the behaviour of freely moving animals is increasingly needed in applied ethology. State-of-the-art approaches often require tags to identify animals, high computational power for data collection and processing, and are sensitive to environmental conditions, which limits their large-scale utilization, for instance in genetic selection programs of animal breeding. Here we introduce a new automated tracking system based on millimetre-wave radars for real time robust and high precision monitoring of untagged animals. In contrast to conventional video tracking systems, radar tracking requires low processing power, is independent on light variations and has more accurate estimations of animal positions due to a lower misdetection rate. To validate our approach, we monitored the movements of 58 sheep in a standard indoor behavioural test used for assessing social motivation. We derived new estimators from the radar data that can be used to improve the behavioural phenotyping of the sheep. We then showed how radars can be used for movement tracking at larger spatial scales, in the field, by adjusting operating frequency and radiated electromagnetic power. Millimetre-wave radars thus hold considerable promises precision farming through high-throughput recording of the behaviour of untagged animals in different types of environments.
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Date: 2017
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 27-07-2016
DOI: 10.1038/SREP30401
Abstract: Simulated annealing is a powerful stochastic search algorithm for locating a global maximum that is hidden among many poorer local maxima in a search space. It is frequently implemented in computers working on complex optimization problems but until now has not been directly observed in nature as a searching strategy adopted by foraging animals. We analysed high-speed video recordings of the three-dimensional searching flights of bumblebees ( Bombus terrestris ) made in the presence of large or small artificial flowers within a 0.5 m 3 enclosed arena. Analyses of the three-dimensional flight patterns in both conditions reveal signatures of simulated annealing searches. After leaving a flower, bees tend to scan back-and forth past that flower before making prospecting flights (loops), whose length increases over time. The search pattern becomes gradually more expansive and culminates when another rewarding flower is found. Bees then scan back and forth in the vicinity of the newly discovered flower and the process repeats. This looping search pattern, in which flight step lengths are typically power-law distributed, provides a relatively simple yet highly efficient strategy for pollinators such as bees to find best quality resources in complex environments made of multiple ephemeral feeding sites with nutritionally variable rewards.
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 02-2021
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Date: 2019
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Date: 11-2015
DOI: 10.1086/683182
Abstract: The determinants of diet breadth are of interest to nutritionists, ecologists, and evolutionary biologists. A recent synthesis addressing this issue found conflicting evidence for the relationship between diet breadth and mean in idual fitness. Specifically, it found that while, on average, a mixed diet does increase mean fitness, in some instances, a single food provides equal (or higher) fitness than a mixed diet. Critical to ecological and evolutionary considerations of diet, however, is not only mean fitness but also variance in fitness. We combine contemporary meta-analytic methods with models of nutritional geometry to evaluate how diet affects between-in idual variance in fitness within generalist consumers from a range of trophic levels. As predicted by nutritional geometry, we found that between-in idual variance in fitness-related traits is higher on single-food than mixed diets. The effect was strong for longevity traits (57% higher) and reproductive traits (37%) and present but weaker for size-related traits (10%). Further, the effect became stronger as the number of available foods increased. The availability of multiple foods likely allows in iduals with differing nutritional optima to customize intake, each maximizing their own fitness. Importantly, these findings may suggest that selection on traits correlated with nutritional requirements is weak in heterogeneous nutritional environments.
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 27-12-2021
DOI: 10.1101/2021.12.24.474118
Abstract: Environmental stressors have sublethal consequences on animals, often affecting the mean of phenotypic traits in a population. However, potential effects on variance are poorly understood. Since phenotypic variance is the basis for adaptation, any influence of stressors may have important implications for population resilience. Here we explored this possibility in insect pollinators by analysing raw datasets from 24 studies (6,913 bees) in which in iduals were first exposed to stressors and then tested for cognitive tasks. While all types of stressors decreased the mean cognitive performance of bees, their effect on variance was complex. Focusing on 15 pesticide studies, we found that the dose and the mode of exposure to stressors were critical. At low pesticide doses, cognitive variance decreased following chronic exposures but not for acute exposures. Acute exposure to low doses thus seems less damaging at the population level. In all cases however, the variance decreased with increasing doses. Policy implications . Current guidelines for the authorization of plant protection products on the European market prioritize acute over chronic toxicity assessments on non-target organisms. By overlooking the consequences of a chronic exposure, regulatory authorities may register new products that are harmful to bee populations. Our findings thus call for more research on stress-induced phenotypic variance and its incorporation to policy guidelines to help identify levels and modes of exposure animals can cope with.
Publisher: The Company of Biologists
Date: 07-2022
DOI: 10.1242/JEB.244340
Abstract: Pollinators are exposed to numerous parasites and pathogens when foraging on flowers. These biological stressors may affect critical cognitive abilities required for foraging. Here, we tested whether exposure to Nosema ceranae, one of the most widespread parasites of honey bees also found in wild pollinators, impacts cognition in bumblebees. We investigated different forms of olfactory learning and memory using conditioning of the proboscis extension reflex. Seven days after being exposed to parasite spores, bumblebees showed lower performance in absolute, differential and reversal learning than controls. The consistent observations across different types of olfactory learning indicate a general negative effect of N. ceranae exposure that did not specifically target particular brain areas or neural processes. We discuss the potential mechanisms by which N. ceranae impairs bumblebee cognition and the broader consequences for populations of pollinators.
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 29-01-2016
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 29-08-2008
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Date: 2020
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 05-2019
DOI: 10.1038/S41598-019-42677-X
Abstract: Honey bee foragers must supply their colony with a balance of pollen and nectar to sustain optimal colony development. Inter-in idual behavioural variability among foragers is observed in terms of activity levels and nectar vs . pollen collection, however the causes of such variation are still open questions. Here we explored the relationship between foraging activity and foraging performance in honey bees ( Apis mellifera ) by using an automated behaviour monitoring system to record mass on departing the hive, trip duration, presence of pollen on the hind legs and mass upon return to the hive, during the lifelong foraging career of in idual bees. In our colonies, only a subset of foragers collected pollen, and no bee exclusively foraged for pollen. A minority of very active bees (19% of the foragers) performed 50% of the colony’s total foraging trips, contributing to both pollen and nectar collection. Foraging performance (amount and rate of food collection) depended on bees’ in idual experience (amount of foraging trips completed). We argue that this reveals an important vulnerability for these social bees since environmental stressors that alter the activity and reduce the lifespan of foragers may prevent bees ever achieving maximal performance, thereby seriously compromising the effectiveness of the colony foraging force.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 07-09-2020
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 17-10-2022
DOI: 10.1101/2022.10.12.511944
Abstract: Analysing large numbers of brain s les can reveal minor, but statistically and biologically relevant variations in brain morphology that provide critical insights into animal behaviour, ecology and evolution. So far, however, such analyses have required extensive manual effort, which considerably limits the scope for comparative research. Here we used micro-CT imaging and deep learning to perform automated analyses of 3D image data from 187 honey bee and bumblebee brains. We revealed strong inter-in idual variations in total brain size that are consistent across colonies and species, and may underpin behavioural variability central to complex social organisations. In addition, the bumblebee dataset showed a significant level of lateralization in optic and antennal lobes, providing a potential explanation for reported variations in visual and olfactory learning. Our fast, robust and user-friendly approach holds considerable promises for carrying out large-scale quantitative neuroanatomical comparisons across a wider range of animals. Ultimately, this will help address fundamental unresolved questions related to the evolution of animal brains and cognition. Bees, despite their small brains, possess a rich behavioural repertoire and show significant variations among in iduals. In social bees this variability is key to the ision of labour that maintains their complex social organizations, and has been linked to the maturation of specific brain areas as a result of development and foraging experience. This makes bees an ideal model for understanding insect cognitive functions and the neural mechanisms that underlie them. However, due to the scarcity of comparative data, the relationship between brain neuro-architecture and behavioural variance remains unclear. To address this problem, we developed an AI-based approach for automated analysis of brain images and analysed an unprecedentedly large dataset of honey bee and bumblebee brains. Through this process, we were able to identify previously undescribed anatomical features that correlate with known behaviours, supporting recent evidence of lateralized behaviour in foraging and pollination. Our method is open-source, easily accessible online, user-friendly, fast, accurate, and robust to different species, enabling large-scale comparative analyses across the animal kingdom. This includes investigating the impact of external stressors such as environmental pollution and climate change on cognitive development, helping us understand the mechanisms underlying the cognitive abilities of animals and the implications for their survival and adaptation.
Publisher: The Company of Biologists
Date: 18-05-2021
DOI: 10.1242/JEB.241869
Abstract: Environmental pollutants can exert sublethal deleterious effects on animals. These include disruption of cognitive functions underlying crucial behaviours. While agrochemicals have been identified as a major threat to pollinators, metal pollutants, which are often found in complex mixtures, have so far been overlooked. Here we assessed the impact of acute exposure to field-realistic concentrations of three common metal pollutants, lead, copper, arsenic, and their combinations, on honey bee appetitive learning and memory. All treatments involving single metals slowed down learning and disrupted memory retrieval at 24 h. Combinations of these metals had additive negative effects on both processes, suggesting common pathways of toxicity. Our results highlight the need to further assess the risks of metal pollution on invertebrates.
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 06-11-2018
DOI: 10.3390/GENES9110534
Abstract: Microbes influence a wide range of host social behaviors and vice versa. So far, however, the mechanisms underpinning these complex interactions remain poorly understood. In social animals, where in iduals share microbes and interact around foods, the gut microbiota may have considerable consequences on host social interactions by acting upon the nutritional behavior of in idual animals. Here we illustrate how conceptual advances in nutritional ecology can help the study of these processes and allow the formulation of new empirically testable predictions. First, we review key evidence showing that gut microbes influence the nutrition of in idual animals, through modifications of their nutritional state and feeding decisions. Next, we describe how these microbial influences and their social consequences can be studied by modelling populations of hosts and their gut microbiota into a single conceptual framework derived from nutritional geometry. Our approach raises new perspectives for the study of holobiont nutrition and will facilitate theoretical and experimental research on the role of the gut microbiota in the mechanisms and evolution of social behavior.
Publisher: The Electromagnetics Academy
Date: 2018
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 25-08-2020
Abstract: Insects have evolved an extraordinary range of nutritional adaptations to exploit other animals, plants, bacteria, fungi and soils as resources in terrestrial and aquatic environments. This special issue provides some new insights into the mechanisms underlying these adaptations. Contributions comprise lab and field studies investigating the chemical, physiological, cognitive and behavioral mechanisms that enable resource exploitation and nutrient intake regulation in insects. The collection of papers highlights the need for more studies on the comparative sensory ecology, underlying nutritional quality assessment, cue perception and decision making to fully understand how insects adjust resource selection and exploitation in response to environmental heterogeneity and variability.
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 13-11-2021
DOI: 10.1101/2020.11.13.381012
Abstract: Central place foraging pollinators tend to develop multi-destination routes (traplines) to visit patchily distributed plant resources. While the formation of traplines by in idual pollinators has been studied in details, how populations of foragers exploit resources in a common area is an open question, difficult to address experimentally. We explored conditions for the emergence of resource partitioning among traplining bees using agent-based models built from experimental data of bumblebees foraging on artificial flowers. In the models, bees learn to develop routes as a consequence of feedback loops that change their probabilities of moving between flowers. While a positive reinforcement of movements leading to rewarding flowers is sufficient for the emergence of resource partitioning when flowers are evenly distributed, addition of negative reinforcement of movements leading to unrewarding flowers is necessary when flowers are patchily distributed. In environments with more complex spatial structure, the negative experiences of in idual bees on flowers favour spatial segregation and efficient collective foraging.
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 25-11-2022
DOI: 10.1101/2021.11.25.469978
Abstract: Animals regulate their diet in order to maximise the expression of fitness traits that often have different nutritional needs. These nutritional trade-offs have been experimentally uncovered using the Geometric framework for nutrition (GF). However, current analytical methods to measure such responses rely on either visual inspection or complex models applied to multidimensional performance landscapes, making these approaches subjective, or conceptually difficult, computationally expensive, and in some cases inaccurate. This limits our ability to understand how animal nutrition evolved to support life-histories within and between species. Here, we introduce a simple trigonometric model to measure nutritional trade-offs in multidimensional landscapes (‘Nutrigonometry’). Nutrigonometry is both conceptually and computationally easier than current approaches, as it harnesses the trigonometric relationships of right-angle triangles instead of vector calculations. Using landmark GF datasets, we first show how polynomial (Bayesian) regressions can be used for precise and accurate predictions of peaks and valleys in performance landscapes, irrespective of the underlying structure of the data (i.e., in idual food intakes vs fixed diet ratios). Using trigonometric relationships, we then identified the known nutritional trade-off between lifespan and reproductive rate both in terms of nutrient balance and concentration. Nutrigonometry enables a fast, reliable and reproducible quantification of nutritional trade-offs in multidimensional performance landscapes, thereby broadening the potential for future developments in comparative research on the evolution of animal nutrition.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 09-2009
DOI: 10.1016/J.BEPROC.2009.03.008
Abstract: Social isolation has dramatic consequences on the development of in iduals of many vertebrate species, and it induces a set of behavioural disturbances rending them unable to process environmental as well as social stimuli appropriately. We hypothesized that isolation syndrome is a ubiquitous trait of social life that can be observed in a wide array of species, including invertebrates. Here we report that gregarious cockroaches (Blattella germanica) reared in isolation showed (i) stronger exploration-avoidance, (ii) reduced foraging activity, (iii) reduced willingness to interact socially, and (iv) reduced ability to assess mating partner quality than conspecifics reared in groups. We demonstrate the occurrence of a behavioural syndrome induced by social isolation, similar to syndromes described in vertebrates, revealing the importance of social interactions and group-living in this non-eusocial insect species. We suggest that investigating social isolation effects on in idual development should provide interesting results to assess social cohesion of species and thus constitute an additional tool for comparative studies focusing on the evolution of social life.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 04-07-2017
DOI: 10.1038/S41598-017-04919-8
Abstract: Workers of social insects, such as bees, ants and wasps, show some degree of inter-in idual variability in decision-making, learning and memory. Whether these natural cognitive differences translate into distinct adaptive behavioural strategies is virtually unknown. Here we examined variability in the movement patterns of bumblebee foragers establishing routes between artificial flowers. We recorded all flower visitation sequences performed by 29 bees tested for 20 consecutive foraging bouts in three experimental arrays, each characterised by a unique spatial configuration of artificial flowers and three-dimensional landmarks. All bees started to develop efficient routes as they accumulated foraging experience in each array, and showed consistent inter-in idual differences in their levels of route fidelity and foraging performance, as measured by travel speed and the frequency of revisits to flowers. While the tendency of bees to repeat the same route was influenced by their colony origin, foraging performance was correlated to body size. The largest foragers travelled faster and made less revisits to empty flowers. We discuss the possible adaptive value of such inter-in idual variability within the forager caste for optimisation of colony-level foraging performances in social pollinators.
Publisher: The Company of Biologists
Date: 2016
DOI: 10.1242/JEB.127431
Abstract: The fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster has emerged as a model organism for research on social interactions. While recent studies describe how in iduals interact on foods for nutrition and reproduction, the complex dynamics by which groups initially develop and disperse have received little attention. Here we investigated the dynamics of collective foraging decisions by Drosophila and their variation with group size and composition. Groups of adults and larvae facing a choice between two identical, nutritionally balanced, food patches distributed themselves asymmetrically, thereby exploiting one patch more than the other. The speed of the collective decisions increased with group size, as a result of flies joining foods faster. However, smaller groups exhibited more pronounced distribution asymmetries than larger ones. Using computer simulations, we show how these non-linear phenomena can emerge from social attraction towards occupied food patches, whose effects add up or compete depending on group size. Our results open new opportunities for exploring complex dynamics of nutrient selection in simple and genetically tractable groups.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2023
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 28-07-2021
DOI: 10.1371/JOURNAL.PCBI.1009260
Abstract: Central place foraging pollinators tend to develop multi-destination routes (traplines) to exploit patchily distributed plant resources. While the formation of traplines by in idual pollinators has been studied in detail, how populations of foragers use resources in a common area is an open question, difficult to address experimentally. We explored conditions for the emergence of resource partitioning among traplining bees using agent-based models built from experimental data of bumblebees foraging on artificial flowers. In the models, bees learn to develop routes as a consequence of feedback loops that change their probabilities of moving between flowers. While a positive reinforcement of movements leading to rewarding flowers is sufficient for the emergence of resource partitioning when flowers are evenly distributed, the addition of a negative reinforcement of movements leading to unrewarding flowers is necessary when flowers are patchily distributed. In environments with more complex spatial structures, the negative experiences of in idual bees on flowers favour spatial segregation and efficient collective foraging. Our study fills a major gap in modelling pollinator behaviour and constitutes a unique tool to guide future experimental programs.
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 09-04-2020
Abstract: Achieving a better understanding of the consequences of nutrition to animal fitness and human health is a major challenge of our century. Nutritional ecology studies increasingly use nutritional landscapes to map the complex interacting effects of nutrient intake on animal performances, in a wide range of species and ecological contexts. Here, we argue that opening access to these hard-to-obtain, yet considerably insightful, data is fundamental to develop a comparative framework for nutrition research and offer new quantitative means to address open questions about the ecology and evolution of nutritional processes.
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 23-08-2017
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 10-2014
DOI: 10.1016/J.JINSPHYS.2014.03.004
Abstract: The Geometric Framework for nutrition has been increasingly used to describe how in idual animals regulate their intake of multiple nutrients to maintain target physiological states maximizing growth and reproduction. However, only a few studies have considered the potential influences of the social context in which these nutritional decisions are made. Social insects, for instance, have evolved extreme levels of nutritional interdependence in which food collection, processing, storage and disposal are performed by different in iduals with different nutritional needs. These social interactions considerably complicate nutrition and raise the question of how nutrient regulation is achieved at multiple organizational levels, by in iduals and groups. Here, we explore the connections between in idual- and collective-level nutrition by developing a modelling framework integrating concepts of nutritional geometry into in idual-based models. Using this approach, we investigate how simple nutritional interactions between in iduals can mediate a range of emergent collective-level phenomena in social arthropods (insects and spiders) and provide ex les of novel and empirically testable predictions. We discuss how our approach could be expanded to a wider range of species and social systems.
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 2013
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 2021
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 07-2021
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 27-11-2015
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 06-2022
DOI: 10.1016/J.CHEMOSPHERE.2022.134089
Abstract: Whether animals can actively avoid food contaminated with harmful compounds through taste is key to assess their ecotoxicological risks. Here, we investigated the ability of honey bees to perceive and avoid food resources contaminated with common metal pollutants known to impair behaviour at low concentrations. In laboratory assays, bees did not discriminate food contaminated with arsenic, lead or zinc and ingested it readily, up to estimated doses of 929.1 μg g
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Date: 2019
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 27-02-2020
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 05-05-2021
DOI: 10.1101/2021.05.04.442599
Abstract: Pollinators are exposed to numerous parasites and pathogens when foraging on flowers. These biological stressors may affect critical cognitive abilities required for foraging. Here, we tested whether exposure to Nosema ceranae , one of the most widespread parasite of honey bees also found in wild pollinators, impacts cognition in bumblebees. We investigated different forms of olfactory learning and memory using conditioning of the proboscis extension reflex. Seven days after feeding parasite spores, bumblebees showed lower performance in absolute and differential learning, and reversal learning than controls. Long-term memory was also slightly reduced. The consistent effect of N. ceranae exposure across different types of olfactory learning indicates that its action was not specific to particular brain areas or neural processes. We discuss the potential mechanisms by which N. ceranae impairs bumblebee cognition and the broader consequences for populations of pollinators.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 28-06-2011
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 06-2008
Publisher: Authorea, Inc.
Date: 16-01-2023
DOI: 10.22541/AU.167388667.70160448/V1
Abstract: Laboratory studies show detrimental effects of metal pollutants on invertebrate behaviour and cognition, even at low levels. Here, we report a field study of Western honey bees s led from an historic mining site heavily contaminated with metal and metalloid pollution, particularly arsenic. We analysed more than 1,000 bees from five apiaries within 11 km of the world’s largest gold mine in Southern France. Bees collected close to the mine exhibited decreased olfactory learning and memory performances and developed smaller heads. Three-dimensional scans of bee brains showed that the olfactory centres of bees s led close to the mine were also smaller, indicating impairment of brain. Our study raises serious concerns about the health of honey bee populations in metal-polluted areas and illustrates how standard cognitive tests can be used for risk assessment.
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 21-09-2016
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 09-10-2008
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 07-03-2013
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 18-05-2010
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 20-09-2012
Publisher: The Company of Biologists
Date: 15-08-2016
DOI: 10.1242/JEB.143214
Abstract: Central-place foragers exploiting floral resources often use multi-destination routes (traplines) to maximise their foraging efficiency. Recent studies on bumblebees have showed how solitary foragers can learn traplines, minimising travel costs between multiple replenishing feeding locations. Here we demonstrate a similar routing strategy in the honeybee (Apis mellifera), a major pollinator known to recruit nestmates to discovered food resources. In idual honeybees trained to collect sucrose solution from four artificial flowers arranged within 10 m of the hive location developed repeatable visitation sequences both in the laboratory and in the field. A 10-fold increase of between-flower distances considerably intensified this routing behaviour, with bees establishing more stable and more efficient routes at larger spatial scales. In these advanced social insects, trapline foraging may complement cooperative foraging for exploiting food resources near the hive (where dance recruitment is not used) or when resources are not large enough to sustain multiple foragers at once.
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 12-01-2021
DOI: 10.3390/MICROORGANISMS9010158
Abstract: Parasites alter the physiology and behaviour of their hosts. In domestic honey bees, the microsporidia Nosema ceranae induces energetic stress that impairs the behaviour of foragers, potentially leading to colony collapse. Whether this parasite similarly affects wild pollinators is little understood because of the low success rates of experimental infection protocols. Here, we present a new approach for infecting bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) with controlled amounts of N. ceranae by briefly exposing in idual bumblebees to parasite spores before feeding them with artificial diets. We validated our protocol by testing the effect of two spore dosages and two diets varying in their protein to carbohydrate ratio on the prevalence of the parasite (proportion of PCR-positive bumblebees), the intensity of parasites (spore count in the gut and the faeces), and the survival of bumblebees. Overall, insects fed a low-protein, high-carbohydrate diet showed the highest parasite prevalence (up to 70%) but lived the longest, suggesting that immunity and survival are maximised at different protein to carbohydrate ratios. Spore dosage did not affect parasite infection rate and host survival. The identification of experimental conditions for successfully infecting bumblebees with N. ceranae in the lab will facilitate future investigations of the sub-lethal effects of this parasite on the behaviour and cognition of wild pollinators.
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 16-03-2016
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 2012
Publisher: The Royal Society
Date: 17-08-2011
Abstract: Animals collecting patchily distributed resources are faced with complex multi-location routing problems. Rather than comparing all possible routes, they often find reasonably short solutions by simply moving to the nearest unvisited resources when foraging. Here, we report the travel optimization performance of bumble-bees ( Bombus terrestris ) foraging in a flight cage containing six artificial flowers arranged such that movements between nearest-neighbour locations would lead to a long suboptimal route. After extensive training (80 foraging bouts and at least 640 flower visits), bees reduced their flight distances and prioritized shortest possible routes, while almost never following nearest-neighbour solutions. We discuss possible strategies used during the establishment of stable multi-location routes (or traplines), and how these could allow bees and other animals to solve complex routing problems through experience, without necessarily requiring a sophisticated cognitive representation of space.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 08-2017
DOI: 10.1111/EEN.12446
Publisher: Authorea, Inc.
Date: 03-11-2020
Publisher: Annual Reviews
Date: 07-01-2015
DOI: 10.1146/ANNUREV-ENTO-010814-020917
Abstract: In this review we highlight recent advances in four areas in which nutrition shapes the relationships between organisms: between plants and herbivores, between hosts and their microbiota, between in iduals within groups and societies, and between species within food webs. We demonstrate that taking an explicitly multidimensional view of nutrition and employing the logic of the geometric framework for nutrition provide novel insights and offer a means of integration across different levels of organization, from in iduals to ecosystems.
Publisher: The Royal Society
Date: 04-2016
DOI: 10.1098/RSOS.150638
Abstract: Collective foraging, based on positive feedback and quorum responses, is believed to improve the foraging efficiency of animals. Nutritional models suggest that social information transfer increases the ability of foragers with closely aligned nutritional needs to find nutrients and maintain a balanced diet. However, whether or not collective foraging is adaptive in a heterogeneous group composed of in iduals with differing nutritional needs is virtually unexplored. Here we develop an evolutionary agent-based model using concepts of nutritional ecology to address this knowledge gap. Our aim was to evaluate how collective foraging, mediated by social retention on foods, can improve nutrient balancing in in iduals with different requirements. The model suggests that in groups where inter-in idual nutritional needs are unimodally distributed, high levels of collective foraging yield optimal in idual fitness by reducing search times that result from moving between nutritionally imbalanced foods. However, where nutritional needs are highly bimodal (e.g. where the requirements of males and females differ) collective foraging is selected against, leading to group fission. In this case, additional mechanisms such as assortative interactions can coevolve to allow collective foraging by subgroups of in iduals with aligned requirements. Our findings indicate that collective foraging is an efficient strategy for nutrient regulation in animals inhabiting complex nutritional environments and exhibiting a range of social forms.
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 02-10-2023
Publisher: IEEE
Date: 05-07-2020
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 10-08-2021
DOI: 10.1038/S41598-021-95664-6
Abstract: Animals have evolved cognitive abilities whose impairment can incur dramatic fitness costs. While malnutrition is known to impact brain development and cognitive functions in vertebrates, little is known in insects whose small brain appears particularly vulnerable to environmental stressors. Here, we investigated the influence of diet quality on learning and memory in the parasitoid wasp Venturia canescens . Newly emerged adults were exposed for 24 h to either honey, 20% sucrose solution, 10% sucrose solution, or water, before being conditioned in an olfactory associative learning task in which an odor was associated to a host larvae (reward). Honey fed wasps showed 3.5 times higher learning performances and 1.5 times longer memory retention than wasps fed sucrose solutions or water. Poor diets also reduced longevity and fecundity. Our results demonstrate the importance of early adult nutrition for optimal cognitive function in these parasitoid wasps that must quickly develop long-term olfactory memories for searching suitable hosts for their progeny.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 04-2018
DOI: 10.1016/J.JINSPHYS.2017.08.005
Abstract: Animals often alter their food choices following a pathogen infection in order to increase immune function and combat the infection. Whether social animals that collect food for their brood or nestmates adjust their nutrient intake to the infection states of their social partners is virtually unexplored. Here we develop an in idual-based model of nutritional geometry to examine the impact of collective nutrient balancing on pathogen spread in a social insect colony. The model simulates a hypothetical social insect colony infected by a horizontally transmitted parasite. Simulation experiments suggest that collective nutrition, by which foragers adjust their nutrient intake to simultaneously address their own nutritional needs as well as those of their infected nestmates, is an efficient social immunity mechanism to limit contamination when immune responses are short. Impaired foraging in infected workers can favour colony resilience when pathogen transmission rate is low (by reducing contacts with the few infected foragers) or trigger colony collapse when transmission rate is fast (by depleting the entire pool of foragers). Our theoretical examination of dietary collective medication in social insects suggests a new possible mechanism by which colonies can defend themselves against pathogens and provides a conceptual framework for experimental investigations of the nutritional immunology of social animals.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2017
DOI: 10.1016/J.CUB.2017.07.022
Abstract: The gut microbiota affects a wide spectrum of host physiological traits, including development [1-5], germline [6], immunity [7-9], nutrition [4, 10, 11], and longevity [12, 13]. Association with microbes also influences fitness-related behaviors such as mating [14] and social interactions [15, 16]. Although the gut microbiota is evidently important for host wellbeing, how hosts become associated with particular assemblages of microbes from the environment remains unclear. Here, we present evidence that the gut microbiota can modify microbial and nutritional preferences of Drosophila melanogaster. By experimentally manipulating the gut microbiota of flies subjected to behavioral and chemosensory assays, we found that fly-microbe attractions are shaped by the identity of the host microbiota. Conventional flies exhibit preference for their associated Lactobacillus, a behavior also present in axenic flies as adults and marginally as larvae. By contrast, fly preference for Acetobacter is primed by early-life exposure and can override the innate preference. These microbial preferences are largely olfactory guided and have profound impact on host foraging, as flies continuously trade off between acquiring beneficial microbes and balancing nutrients from food. Our study shows a role of animal microbiota in shaping host fitness-related behavior through their chemosensory responses, opening a research theme on the interrelationships between the microbiota, host sensory perception, and behavior.
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 21-06-2007
Publisher: ACM
Date: 22-11-2021
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
No related grants have been discovered for Mathieu Lihoreau.