ArticleFrontiers in psychology2018
Omega-6:3 Ratio More Than Absolute Lipid Level in Diet Affects Associative Learning in Honey Bees.
Article in Frontiers in psychology, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 28 papers.
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28 citing papers in PubMed, 84 citations in OpenAlex.
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- The effects of queen mandibular pheromone on nurse-aged honey bee (Apis mellifera) hypopharyngeal gland size and lipid metabolism.PloS one · 2024Article
- Perception, regulation, and effects on longevity of pollen fatty acids in the honey bee, Apis mellifera.PloS one · 2024Article
- More than mesolectic: Characterizing the nutritional niche ofEcology and evolution · 2023Article
- Sterol and lipid metabolism in bees.Metabolomics : Official journal of the Metabolomic Society · 2023Review
- Developing Strategies to Help Bee Colony Resilience in Changing Environments.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2022Review
- Assessing pollen nutrient content: a unifying approach for the study of bee nutritional ecology.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Do amino and fatty acid profiles of pollen provisions correlate with bacterial microbiomes in the mason beePhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Expression Profile and Ligand Screening of a Putative Odorant-Binding Protein, AcerOBP6, from the Asian Honeybee.Insects · 2021Article
- Nutritive Value of 11 Bee Pollen Samples from Major Floral Sources in Taiwan.Foods (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- Poor adult nutrition impairs learning and memory in a parasitoid wasp.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Seed Meals fromMicroorganisms · 2021Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Floral pollen is a major source of honey bee nutrition that provides them with micro- and macro-nutrients, including proteins, fatty acids, vitamins, and minerals. Different pollens vary in composition, including in the essential fatty acids, alpha-linolenic acid (omega-3) and linoleic acid (omega-6). Monocultures, prevalent in modern agriculture, may expose honey bee colonies to unbalanced omega-6:3 diets. The importance of omega-3 in the diet for adequate learning and cognitive function, with a focus on suitable omega-6:3 ratio, is well documented in mammals. We have recently shown, for the first time in invertebrates, the importance of omega-3 in diets for associative learning ability in honey bees. In the current work, we examine the effect of the absolute amount of omega-3 in diet compared to the omega-6:3 ratio on honey bee associative learning. We fed newly emerged bees for 1 week on different artificial diets, which had lipid concentration of 1, 2, 4, or 8%, with omega-6:3 ratios of 0.3, 1, or 5, respectively. We then tested the bees in a proboscis-extension response olfactory conditioning assay. We found that both omega-6:3 ratio and total lipid concentration affected learning. The most detrimental diet for learning was that with a high omega-6:3 ratio of 5, regardless of the absolute amount of omega-3 in the diet. Bees fed an omega-6:3 ratio of 1, with 4% total lipid concentration achieved the best performance. Our results with honey bees are consistent with those found in mammals. Best cognitive performance is achieved by a diet that is sufficiently rich in essential fatty acids, but as long as the omega-6:3 ratio is not high.
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