Changes in gut microbiota and metabolism associated with phenotypic plasticity in the honey bee Apis mellifera.

ABSTRACT: Honey bees exhibit an elaborate social structure based in part on an age-related division of labor. Young workers perform tasks inside the hive, while older workers forage outside the hive, tasks associated with distinct diets and metabolism. Critical to colony fitness, the work force can respond rapidly to changes in the environment or colony demography and assume emergency tasks, resulting in young foragers or old nurses. We hypothesized that both task and age affect the gut microbiota consistent with changes to host diet and physiology. We performed two experiments inducing precocious foragers and reverted nurses, then quantified tissue-specific gut microbiota and host metabolic state associated with nutrition, immunity and oxidative stress. In the precocious forager experiment, both ag

SUBMITTER: Copeland DC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9788138 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature