Adult brain neurogenesis does not account for behavioral differences between solitary and social bees.

Abstract

In many taxa, increasing attention is being paid to how group living shapes the expression of brain plasticity and behavioural flexibility. In eusocial insects, the lifelong commitment of workers and queens to a reproductive or non-reproductive caste is accompanied by a loss of behavioural totipotency, and often, by the expression of a limited behavioural repertoire in workers due to their specialisation. On the other hand, individuals of solitary species have a broader behavioural repertoire as they have to perform all the tasks themselves. This raises the question of whether solitary and social insects differ in their levels of brain plasticity. One mechanism found in both invertebrates and vertebrates to contribute to brain plasticity is adult neurogenesis. It is a mechanism by which adult-born neurons are generated, differentiated and functionally integrated in the brain circuits during adulthood. In this study, we compared the solitary bee Osmia bicornis and the eusocial bee Apis mellifera. We focused on the mushroom bodies which are higher-order integration centres in the insect brain. Based on their known behavioural repertoire, our prediction was that both solitary and social bees would exhibit neurogenesis in the brain until the pupal stage, but that this capacity would persist only in adult solitary bees. However, our results do not validate this prediction, as they indicate that no cells are produced in the mushroom bodies or other areas of the adult solitary bee brain.