In search of behavioral and brain processes involved in honey bee dance communication

Hiroyuki Ai; Walter M Farina

doi:10.3389/fnbeh.2023.1140657

In search of behavioral and brain processes involved in honey bee dance communication

Front Behav Neurosci. 2023 Jun 29:17:1140657. doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2023.1140657. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Hiroyuki Ai^#¹, Walter M Farina^#^{2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Earth System Science, Fukuoka University, Fukuoka, Japan.
² Laboratorio de Insectos Sociales, Departamento de Biodiversidad y Biología Experimental, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
³ Instituto de Fisiología, Biología Molecular y Neurociencias, CONICET-UBA, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Honey bees represent an iconic model animal for studying the underlying mechanisms affecting advanced sensory and cognitive abilities during communication among colony mates. After von Frisch discovered the functional value of the waggle dance, this complex motor pattern led ethologists and neuroscientists to study its neural mechanism, behavioral significance, and implications for a collective organization. Recent studies have revealed some of the mechanisms involved in this symbolic form of communication by using conventional behavioral and pharmacological assays, neurobiological studies, comprehensive molecular and connectome analyses, and computational models. This review summarizes several critical behavioral and brain processes and mechanisms involved in waggle dance communication. We focus on the role of neuromodulators in the dancer and the recruited follower, the interneurons and their related processing in the first mechano-processing, and the computational navigation centers of insect brains.

Keywords: antenna-mechano-motor center; brain; central complex; experience-based modulatory system; honey bee; neuromodulation; rhumb-line; waggle dance.

Publication types

Review

Grants and funding

HA was supported by the Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research from the Ministry of Education, Science, Technology, Sports, and Culture of Japan (C, Grant Nos. 21K05624, 22K06325, and BB040076) and a grant from the Fukuoka University Central Research Institute (Grant No. 206001). WF was supported by an Invitational Fellowship Short-term of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. WF was also supported by grants from the University of Buenos Aires (20020170100078BA), CONICET (PIP 11220200102201CO), and ANPCYT (PICT 2019 2438) of Argentina.