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      Landscape Analysis of Drone Congregation Areas of the Honey Bee, Apis mellifera

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          Abstract

          Male honey bees fly and gather at Drone Congregation Areas (DCAs), where drones and queens mate in flight. DCAs occur in places with presumably characteristic features. Using previously described landscape characteristics and observations on flight direction of drones in nearby apiaries, 36 candidate locations were chosen across the main island of Puerto Rico. At these locations, the presence or absence of DCAs was tested by lifting a helium balloon equipped with queen-sex-pheromone-impregnated bait, and visually determining the presence of high numbers of drones. Because of the wide distribution of honey bees in Puerto Rico, it was expected that most of the potential DCAs would be used as such by drones and queens from nearby colonies. Eight DCAs were found in the 36 candidate locations. Locations with and without DCAs were compared in a landscape analysis including characteristics that were described to be associated with DCAs and others. Aspect (direction of slope) and density of trails were found to be significantly associated with the presence of DCAs.

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          Most cited references62

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          High Levels of Miticides and Agrochemicals in North American Apiaries: Implications for Honey Bee Health

          Background Recent declines in honey bees for crop pollination threaten fruit, nut, vegetable and seed production in the United States. A broad survey of pesticide residues was conducted on samples from migratory and other beekeepers across 23 states, one Canadian province and several agricultural cropping systems during the 2007–08 growing seasons. Methodology/Principal Findings We have used LC/MS-MS and GC/MS to analyze bees and hive matrices for pesticide residues utilizing a modified QuEChERS method. We have found 121 different pesticides and metabolites within 887 wax, pollen, bee and associated hive samples. Almost 60% of the 259 wax and 350 pollen samples contained at least one systemic pesticide, and over 47% had both in-hive acaricides fluvalinate and coumaphos, and chlorothalonil, a widely-used fungicide. In bee pollen were found chlorothalonil at levels up to 99 ppm and the insecticides aldicarb, carbaryl, chlorpyrifos and imidacloprid, fungicides boscalid, captan and myclobutanil, and herbicide pendimethalin at 1 ppm levels. Almost all comb and foundation wax samples (98%) were contaminated with up to 204 and 94 ppm, respectively, of fluvalinate and coumaphos, and lower amounts of amitraz degradates and chlorothalonil, with an average of 6 pesticide detections per sample and a high of 39. There were fewer pesticides found in adults and brood except for those linked with bee kills by permethrin (20 ppm) and fipronil (3.1 ppm). Conclusions/Significance The 98 pesticides and metabolites detected in mixtures up to 214 ppm in bee pollen alone represents a remarkably high level for toxicants in the brood and adult food of this primary pollinator. This represents over half of the maximum individual pesticide incidences ever reported for apiaries. While exposure to many of these neurotoxicants elicits acute and sublethal reductions in honey bee fitness, the effects of these materials in combinations and their direct association with CCD or declining bee health remains to be determined.
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            Genes and social behavior.

            What genes and regulatory sequences contribute to the organization and functioning of neural circuits and molecular pathways in the brain that support social behavior? How does social experience interact with information in the genome to modulate brain activity? Here, we address these questions by highlighting progress that has been made in identifying and understanding two key "vectors of influence" that link genes, the brain, and social behavior: (i) Social information alters gene expression in the brain to influence behavior, and (ii) genetic variation influences brain function and social behavior. We also discuss how evolutionary changes in genomic elements influence social behavior and outline prospects for a systems biology of social behavior.
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              Cognitive architecture of a mini-brain: the honeybee.

              Honeybees have small brains, but their behavioural repertoire is impressive. In this article we focus on the extent to which adaptive behaviour in honeybees exceeds elementary forms of learning. We use the concept of modularity of cognitive functions to characterize levels of complexity in the honeybee brain. We show that behavioural complexity in the honeybee cannot be explained by independent functions of vertically arranged, domain-specific processing modules, but requires horizontal integration in a central state, and we identify neural mechanisms that may underlie domain-specific processing and central integration. The honeybee may serve as a useful model for the study of intermediate levels of complexity in cognitive functions and the search for their neural substrates.
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                Author and article information

                Journal
                J Insect Sci
                J. Insect Sci
                insc
                Journal of Insect Science
                University of Wisconsin Library
                1536-2442
                2012
                22 October 2012
                : 12
                : 122
                Affiliations
                [1]Department of Biology, University of Puerto Rico, JGD 202 PO Box. San Juan, PR 00931
                Author notes
                [*] [ * ]Corresponding author

                Editor: Robert Jeanne was editor of this paper.

                Article
                10.1673/031.012.12201
                3635128
                23451901
                5986c600-84ed-4720-b506-8b70086b4dda
                © 2012

                This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

                History
                : 13 May 2011
                : 27 July 2012
                Page count
                Pages: 15
                Categories
                Article

                Entomology
                dcas,landscape ecology,mating behavior,queen pheromone
                Entomology
                dcas, landscape ecology, mating behavior, queen pheromone

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