ovarioles

A study of more than 500 worker bees from four wild-type colonies established that bees with more ovarioles forage earlier in life and bias their foraging effort toward pollen and accept nectar of lower sucrose concentrations, as repeatedly demonstrated for high pollen-hoarding strain bees

PLoS ONE Alerts: New Articles Jennifer M. Tsuruda et al. 2008

We predicted that bees with more ovarioles are characterized by elevated levels of vitellogenin mRNA and, as a consequence, increased sucrose responsiveness.

PLoS ONE Alerts: New Articles Jennifer M. Tsuruda et al. 2008

To test the linkage of reproductive traits and sensory response systems of social behavior, we measured sucrose responsiveness with the proboscis extension response (PER) assay and quantified ovary size and vitellogenin (yolk precursor) gene expression in 6-7-day-old bees by counting ovarioles

PLoS ONE Alerts: New Articles Jennifer M. Tsuruda et al. 2008

The total number of ovarioles was counted under a compound stereomicroscope.

PLoS ONE Alerts: New Articles Jennifer M. Tsuruda et al. 2008

To test the linkage of reproductive traits and sensory response systems of social behavior, we measured sucrose responsiveness with the proboscis extension response (PER) assay and quantified ovary size and vitellogenin (yolk precursor) gene expression in 6-7-day-old bees by counting ovarioles (ovary filaments) and by using semiquantitative real time RT-PCR.

ScienceBlogs Channel : Life Science 2008

Ovariole number was shown previously to correlate with the foraging behavior of wild-type workers, those with more ovarioles foraged earlier in life and showed a foraging bias toward pollen and nectar with lower sugar concentrations

PLoS ONE Alerts: New Articles Jennifer M. Tsuruda et al. 2008

We show that bees with larger ovaries (more ovarioles) are characterized by higher levels of vitellogenin mRNA expression and are more responsive to sucrose solutions, a trait that is central to division of labor and foraging specialization.

ScienceBlogs Channel : Life Science 2008

[11]; bees with low numbers of ovarioles and low sucrose responsiveness (LL) and those with high numbers of ovarioles and high sucrose responsiveness

PLoS ONE Alerts: New Articles Jennifer M. Tsuruda et al. 2008

The analysis documented that bees that on average had high numbers of ovarioles and high sucrose responsiveness (HH) also had higher relative levels of vitellogenin mRNA expression than bees with low numbers of ovarioles and low sucrose responsiveness (P = 0.0025;

PLoS ONE Alerts: New Articles Jennifer M. Tsuruda et al. 2008

Individuals were assigned a gustatory response score (GRS) based on the number of sugar concentrations that elicited a response (proboscis extension); a high GRS reflects a high responsiveness to sucrose (see GRS testing was followed by abdominal dissections to remove the ovaries and count the total number of ovarioles of each individual bee.

PLoS ONE Alerts: New Articles Jennifer M. Tsuruda et al. 2008