ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2010
Socially induced brain development in a facultatively eusocial sweat bee Megalopta genalis (Halictidae).
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2010. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 32 papers.
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32 citing papers in PubMed, 74 citations in OpenAlex.
- Evolution of neurometabolic frugality in harvester ants.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2026Article
- Sex-Specific Neuroplasticity in the Brain of a Facultatively Social Orchid Bee.Integrative and comparative biology · 2026Article
- Pheromone and morphometric features of honey bee (Apis mellifera) queens imported to Canada from around the globe.PloS one · 2026Article
- Sexual dimorphism and morphological integration in the orchid bee brain.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Experience-dependent plasticity in the olfactory system ofFrontiers in cellular neuroscience · 2023Review
- Reduced neural investment in post-reproductive females of the bee Ceratina calcarta.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Social isolation and group size are associated with divergent gene expression in the brain of ant queens.Genes, brain, and behavior · 2022Article
- The Loss of Sociality Is Accompanied by Reduced Neural Investment in Mushroom Body Volume in the Sweat BeeAnnals of the Entomological Society of America · 2021Article
- Age-related mushroom body expansion in male sweat bees and bumble bees.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Intra-specific differences in cognition: bumblebee queens learn better than workers.Biology letters · 2021Article
- Age and social experience induced plasticity across brain regions of the paper waspBiology letters · 2021Article
- Social reprogramming in ants induces longevity-associated glia remodeling.Science advances · 2020Article
- Brain differences between social castes precede group formation in a primitively eusocial bee.Die Naturwissenschaften · 2019Article
- Brain evolution in social insects: advocating for the comparative approach.Journal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology · 2019Review
- Recent Advances in Behavioral (Epi)Genetics in Eusocial Insects.Annual review of genetics · 2018Review
- The genetic basis of a social polymorphism in halictid bees.Nature communications · 2018Article
- An intraspecific appraisal of the social intelligence hypothesis.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2018Review
- Why are there so many explanations for primate brain evolution?Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2017Review
- Sensory and cognitive adaptations to social living in insect societies.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2017Article
- Running wheel training does not change neurogenesis levels or alter working memory tasks in adult rats.PeerJ · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Changes in the relative size of brain regions are often dependent on experience and environmental stimulation, which includes an animal's social environment. Some studies suggest that social interactions are cognitively demanding, and have examined predictions that the evolution of sociality led to the evolution of larger brains. Previous studies have compared species with different social organizations or different groups within obligately social species. Here, we report the first intraspecific study to examine how social experience shapes brain volume using a species with facultatively eusocial or solitary behaviour, the sweat bee Megalopta genalis. Serial histological sections were used to reconstruct and measure the volume of brain areas of bees behaving as social reproductives, social workers, solitary reproductives or 1-day-old bees that are undifferentiated with respect to the social phenotype. Social reproductives showed increased development of the mushroom body (an area of the insect brain associated with sensory integration and learning) relative to social workers and solitary reproductives. The gross neuroanatomy of young bees is developmentally similar to the advanced eusocial species previously studied, despite vast differences in colony size and social organization. Our results suggest that the transition from solitary to social behaviour is associated with modified brain development, and that maintaining dominance, rather than sociality per se, leads to increased mushroom body development, even in the smallest social groups possible (i.e. groups with two bees). Such results suggest that capabilities to navigate the complexities of social life may be a factor shaping brain evolution in some social insects, as for some vertebrates.
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