Gustatory Responsiveness of Honey Bees Colonized with a Defined or Conventional Gut Microbiota

• Published in: Microbes and Environments Vol. 39; no. 1; p. ME23081
• Main Authors: Suenami, Shota, Sato, Masato, Miyazaki, Ryo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Japan Japanese Society of Microbial Ecology / Japanese Society of Soil Microbiology / Taiwan Society of Microbial Ecology / Japanese Society of Plant Microbe Interactions / Japanese Society for Extremophiles 2024
• Subjects: Animals; Bees; behavior; Food; Gastrointestinal Microbiome; gustatory responsiveness; gut microbiota; gut-brain axis; honey bee; Regular Paper; Sucrose; honey bee; gustatory responsiveness; behavior; gut microbiota; gut-brain axis
• ISSN: 1342-6311; 1347-4405
• DOI: 10.1264/jsme2.ME23081

Gut microbes have many beneficial functions for host animals, such as food digestion and development of the immune system. An increasing number of studies report that gut bacteria also affect host neural function and behavior. The sucrose responsiveness of the western honey bee Apis mellifera, which harbors a characteristic gut microbiota, was recently reported to be increased by the presence of gut microbes. However, this responsiveness may vary depending on the experimental design, as animal behavior may be modulated by physiological states and environmental conditions. To evaluate the robustness of the effects of the gut microbiota on host gustatory responsiveness, we herein examined the sucrose responsiveness of honey bees colonized with a defined bacterial community or a conventional gut microbiota extracted from a field-collected bee. Although colonization was experimentally verified, sucrose responsiveness did not significantly differ among treatments after the 2- or 5-h starvation period. We concluded that the sucrose responsiveness of A. mellifera is not always affected by its gut microbiota. Therefore, host physiological conditions and environmental factors need to be considered when evaluating the impact of the gut microbiota on host neural function and behavior.