The article Genetic control of the Honey Bee (Apis mellifera) dance language: segregating dance forms in a backcrossed colony by R. N. Johnson, B. P. Oldroyd, A. B. Barron, and R. H. Crozier is the basis of this exercise.

 

By Siri Live Svelle

 

In the article and the research described by R.N Johnson et al examined how or if the genes is regulating and having an influence of the dancing behaviour of honeybees (Apis mellifera). This experiment has also been done by Rinderer and Beaman (1995), showing a similar result where it seems too that in that inheritance of the transition point from round dancing → waggle dancing is consistent with control by a single locus with more than one allele.

 

I would like to look at some aspect about the theory around the bees dancing before continue around the article. This for just getting an overview about the subject. The dance is performed when the bees return to the hive, and known as round dance (left) and waggle dance (right), and occasionally crossing the circle in a zigzag or waggle pattern. Karl von Frisch has described it by relating the runs and turns of the dance to the distance and direction of the food source from the hive. A communication which depends on learning and also said to be a language theory, this is lately partly proofed to the contrary.

 

Method in use: crossing

Two parent colonies from purebred A. m. ligustica (yellow) and A. m. carnica (black) were used, their dancing characteristics where determined, and two virgin queens were reared form yellow parent and instrumentally inseminated with semen of single sons of black parent. A F1 queen was collected and backcrossed to a singe son of yellow parent, this because of the dance characteristics of individuals from F1 colonies one could estimate that the black parental phenotype was genetically dominant.

Now all individuals from two parental colonies and F1 where evaluated for the foraging distance where they changed from transition dances to waggle dances.

 

Result of R.N Johnson et al.

The F1 colonies behaved like the black parent in the way of changing the dance type, and therefore was most consistent with an A. m. carnica phenotype, and so the black parental was deemed the “dominant”.

The backcross colony they observed segregation in dancing behavior into two broad classes at the 56 m. Here 202 individuals were characterized, of which 111 bees performed round dances and 91 performed waggle dances. In a backcross a 1:1 ratio is expected if inheritance follows a single-gene dominant/recessive model per transition point, as proposed by Rinderer and Beaman (1995). In making fewer mistakes a check on the age influence of the dance showed that the majority of individuals (81%) tracked for their entire foraging history did not change their dance type over the duration of the experiment. So the age influence could be neglected.

 

This experiment suggests as Rinderer and Beaman (1995) that the transition point is inherited as a single gene showing simple Mandelian inheritance. Both the crossing and backcrossing showed an expected result, and the age did not affect the transition point. The bees from this experiment and those of the other had some differences due to length distance where the dancing change and also the presence of sickle dance. Also the one dominant in Rinderer and Beaman 1995 experiment was yellow, and this is explained due to there is no apparent linkage between dominance of dance phenotype a body color. Future it is described that it would be reasonable that these two scorable characteristics segregate independently. Due to the result of Rinderer and Beaman and this there is reasonable to suppose that there are a series of alleles determining the threshold distance for the waggle à round transition, and that these have a dominance hierarchy reminiscent of that known from the mouse agouti locus (Siracusa et al. 1987). (article)

 

The result is most consistent with that expected by a single locus, but during the model proposed by involving tow unlinked loci one double recessive (aabb) and double dominant (AABB). So then F1 would be a (AaBb) heterozygote and could be backcrossed to the double recessive. Under a two-locus model, the round phenotype would be expected 25% of the time. The round phenotype at this experiment was on a frequency of 0.55, significantly lower than that expected under the two-locus model. Therefore, in this case the two-locus model, as the next most plausible model, can be rejected. The experiments result therefore agreement with previous findings that the honeybees dancing behavior is complex and under simple genetic control.

 

Conclusion and critics

I see this experiment as a start of a new way of looking at the dancing of the honeybees away form the previously thinking that the dance is a language. By the connection of genes to it, the language part of the dancing would be seen as a ritual in different ways, even though the writers themselves speaks about it as a language for communication.

By repeating the experiment to more variances of honeybees, the result may have been more accurate, but even though the two result from this and the one experiment before had a similar result. The two experiments differ most according to superficial aspects as color, and also the distance they changed from round to wagging dance. This may of course indicate that this just is in the influence of the environment, as a explanation suggested by Esch et al. 2001, but why should then one way be more dominant in a way than the other. The influence of simple genetic control is also true for other species in the genus Apis, seen in other studies.  

A bee colony consist of up to 100 000 bees, and with a brain not as big as a legume seed, it is strange to expect that regulation and communication is possible in other ways than by the evolutionary genetic control and also by pheromones (the primary) (research by Dr. Zachary Huang (2004). Even though the bees dance indicate the distance and direction, this may be just a “storry” about the bees travle, indicated by newcommers this may be true, this in they way it seems in reasent study that they follow the smell of the different flowers more than the actually dancing.

Without making this a discussion about the essens in the bee dance theory as a language, I would say that the recearch done by R. N. Johnson, B. P. Oldroyd, A. B. Barron, and R. H. Crozier, would be a start on a new way, and also with new aspect in setting the headlines. So hopefully later works will find more alleles that make up the these connection and also the variances between the different subspecies in the A. mellifera dances may be explained in a different way or by the environmental influence.