Stingless Bees Use Terpenes as Olfactory Cues to Find Resin Sources

Insects largely rely on olfactory cues when seeking and judging information on nests, partners, or resources. Bees are known to use volatile compounds—besides visual cues—to find flowers suitable for pollen and nectar collection. Tropical stingless bees additionally collect large amounts of plant re...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Chemical senses 2010-09, Vol.35 (7), p.603-611
Main Authors: Leonhardt, S.D., Zeilhofer, S., Blüthgen, N., Schmitt, Thomas
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Bees - chemistry
Bees - metabolism
Bees - physiology
Biological and medical sciences
Borneo
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Olfaction. Taste
olfactory cues
Olfactory Perception - physiology
Perception
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
resin
Resins, Plant - chemistry
stingless bees
terpenes
Terpenes - metabolism
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Summary:Insects largely rely on olfactory cues when seeking and judging information on nests, partners, or resources. Bees are known to use volatile compounds—besides visual cues—to find flowers suitable for pollen and nectar collection. Tropical stingless bees additionally collect large amounts of plant resins for nest construction, nest maintenance, nest defense, and to derive chemical constituents for their cuticular profiles. We here demonstrate that stingless bees of Borneo also use olfactory cues to find tree resins. They rely on volatile mono- and sesquiterpenes to locate or recognize known resin sources. Moreover, by modifying resin extracts, we found that stingless bees do not use the entire resin bouquet but relative proportions of several terpenes. In doing so, the bees are able to learn specific tree resin profiles and distinguish between tree species and partly even tree individuals.
ISSN:0379-864X
1464-3553
DOI:10.1093/chemse/bjq058