Randolf Menzel

Freie Universität Berlin | FUB · Institute of Biology

The text contains an English translation of an article by Hans von Alten (1910): Zur Phylogenie des Hymenopterengehirns. The original article was written in German and can be found at https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/94925#page/525/mode/1up (starting on page 511) and can be downloaded at: https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/pdf4/1711366i...

The supplementary material contains - TextFigures and Plates accompanying the main text - legends and captions - an extended abbreviations list - a list of species reported in the original article by von Alten, 1910

Learning an olfactory discrimination task leads to heterogeneous results in honeybees with some bees performing very well and others at low rates. Here we investigated this behavioral heterogeneity and asked whether it was associated with particular gene expression patterns in the bee’s brain. Bees were individually conditioned using a sequential c...

Learning an olfactory discrimination task leads to heterogeneous results in honeybees with bees performing very well and others at low rates. Here we investigated this behavioral heterogeneity and asked whether it is associated with particular gene expression patterns. Bees were individually conditioned in a sequential conditioning protocol involvi...

Honeybees (Apis mellifera carnica) communicate the direction and distance to a food source by means of a waggle dance. We ask whether bees recruited by the dance use it only as a flying instruction, with the technical form of a polar vector, or also translate it into a location vector that enables them to set courses directed toward the food source...

Flying insects like the honeybee learn multiple features of the environment for efficient navigation. Here we introduce a novel paradigm in the natural habitat, and ask whether the memory of such features is generalized to novel test conditions. Foraging bees from colonies located in 5 different home areas were tested in a common area for their sea...

Flying insects like the honeybee experience the world as a metric layout embedded in a compass, the time-compensated sun compass. The focus of the review lies on the properties of the landscape memory as accessible by data from radar tracking and analyses of waggle dance following. The memory formed during exploration and foraging is thought to be...

A bstract Flying insects like the honeybee learn multiple features of the environment for efficient navigation. Here we ask whether the memory of such features is generalized to novel test conditions. Foraging bees from colonies located in 5 different home areas were tested in a common area for their search flights. Harmonic radar was used to track...

Honeybees (Apis mellifera carnica) communicate the rhumb line to a food source (its direction and distance from the hive) by means of a waggle dance. We ask whether bees recruited by the dance use it only as a flying instruction or also translate it into a location vector in a map-like memory, so that information about spatial relations of environm...

In this study we describe egfp expression induced by two techniques: in vivo electroporation and viral transduction in several cell types of the adult honeybee brain. Non-neuronal and neuronal cell types were identified and the expression persisted at least during three days. Kenyon cells, optic lobe neurons and protocerebral lobe neurons were elec...

The search strategy for the memory trace and its semantics is exemplified for the case of olfactory learning in the honeybee brain. The logic of associative learning is used to guide the experimental approach into the brain by identifying the anatomical and functional convergence sites of the conditioned stimulus and unconditioned stimulus pathways...

In this study we describe egfp expression induced by two techniques: in vivo electroporation and viral transduction in several cell types of the adult honeybee brain. Non-neuronal and neuronal cell types were identified and the expression persisted at least during three days. Kenyon cells, optic lobe neurons and protocerebral lobe neurons were elec...

Ca 2+ imaging techniques were applied to investigate the neuronal behavior of projection neurons in the honeybee antennal lobe (AL) to examine the effects of long-lasting adaptation on odorant coding. Responses to eight test odorants were measured before, during, and after an odor adaptation phase. Bees were exposed to the adapting odor for 30 min....

Insect neuroscience generates vast amounts of highly diverse data, of which only a small fraction are findable, accessible and reusable. To promote an open data culture, we have therefore developed the InsectBrainDatabase ( IBdb ), a free online platform for insect neuroanatomical and functional data. The IBdb facilitates biological insight by enab...

Navigating animals combine multiple perceptual faculties, learn during exploration, retrieve multi-facetted memory contents, and exhibit goal-directedness as an expression of their current needs and motivations. Navigation in insects has been linked to a variety of underlying strategies such as path integration, view familiarity, visual beaconing,...

Honeybees communicate locations by the waggle dance, a symbolic form of information transfer. Here we ask whether the recruited bee uses only the indicated course vector or translates it into a location vector on a cognitive map. Recruits were captured on exiting the hive and displaced to distant release sites. Their flights were tracked by radar....

As a canary in a coalmine warns of dwindling breathable air, the honeybee can indicate the health of an ecosystem. Honeybees are the most important pollinators of fruit-bearing flowers, and share similar ecological niches with many other pollinators; therefore, the health of a honeybee colony can reflect the conditions of a whole ecosystem. The hea...

In 1972 Rescorla and Wagner formulated their model of classical Pavlovian conditioning postulating that the associative strength of a stimulus is expressed directly in the behavior it elicits. Many biologists and psychologists were inspired by this model, and numerous experiments thereafter were interpreted assuming that the magnitude of the condit...

Behavioral innovation and problem solving are widely considered important mechanisms by which animals respond to novel environmental challenges, including those induced by human activities. Despite its functional and ecological relevance, much of our current understanding of these processes comes from studies in vertebrates. Understanding these pro...

Insect neuroscience generates vast amounts of highly diverse data, of which only a small fraction are findable, accessible and reusable, despite open data mandates by funding bodies. We have therefore developed the InsectBrainDatabase (IBdb), an open platform for depositing, sharing and managing a wide range of insect neuroanatomical and functional...

Insect neuroscience generates vast amounts of highly diverse data, of which only a small fraction are findable, accessible and reusable, despite open data mandates by funding bodies. We have therefore developed the InsectBrainDatabase (IBdb), an open platform for depositing, sharing and managing a wide range of insect neuroanatomical and functional...

Ongoing losses of pollinators are of significant international concern because of the essential role they have in our ecosystem, agriculture, and economy. Both chemical and non-chemical stressors have been implicated as possible contributors to their decline, but the increasing use of neonicotinoid insecticides has recently emerged as particularly...

Central place foraging insects like honeybees and bumblebees learn to navigate efficiently between nest and feeding site. Essential components of this behavior can be moved to the laboratory. A major component of navigational learning is the active exploration of the test arena. These conditions have been used here to search for neural correlates o...

Reflections about the historical roots of our current scientific endeavors are useful from time to time as they help us to acknowledge the ideas, concepts, methodological approaches, and idiosyncrasies of the researchers that paved the ground we stand on right now. The 50-year anniversary of Apidologie offers the opportunity to refresh our knowledg...

Evolutionary change is considered a major factor influencing the invasion of new habitats by plants. Yet, evidence on how such modifications promote range expansion remains rather limited. Here we investigated flower color modifications in the red poppy, Papaver rhoeas (Papaveraceae), as a result of its introduction into Central Europe and the impa...

Sleep plays an essential role in both neural and energetic homeostasis of animals. Honey bees (Apis mellifera) manifest the sleep state as a reduction in muscle tone and antennal movements, which is susceptible to physical or chemical disturbances. This social insect is one of the most important pollinators in agricultural ecosystems, being exposed...

The social behavior of honeybees (Apis mellifera) has been extensively investigated, but little is known about its neuronal correlates. We developed a method that allowed us to record extracellularly from mushroom body extrinsic neurons (MB ENs) in a freely moving bee within a small but functioning mini colony of approximately 1,000 bees. This stud...

Behavioural innovation is widely considered an important mechanism by which animals respond to novel environmental challenges, including those induced by human activities. Despite its functional and ecological relevance, much of our current understanding of the innovation process comes from studies in vertebrates. Understanding innovation processes...

The notion of the waggle dance simulating a flight towards a goal in a walking pattern has been proposed in the context of evolutionary considerations. Behavioral components, like its arousing effect on the social community, the attention of hive mates induced by this behavior, the direction of the waggle run relative to the sun azimuth or to gravi...

Insekten sind weltweit die artenreichste Tiergruppe und für die Funktion von Ökosystemen unerlässlich. Der dramatische Rückgang der Insekten hat in Mitteleuropa inzwischen alarmierende Ausmaße erreicht. Er ist Anzeichen einer globalen Biodiversitätskrise, die sich bereits seit Jahrzehnten abgezeichnet hat und die unabsehbare ökonomische und ökologi...

Zusammenfassung Die industrialisierte Landwirtschaft setzt zunehmend auf chemische Mittel bei der Bekämpfung von Nahrungskonkurrenten. Daraus ergeben sich eine Reihe von direkten und indirekten Wirkungen auf die Kulturlandschaft. Unter den Insektiziden sind es vor allem die Neonicotinoide, die die bestäubenden Insekten abtöten oder schädigen. Diese...

Neonicotinoids act as agonists on the nicotinic Acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) in insect brains, an essential molecular component of central brain structures involved in learning and memory formation. Sublethal doses might, therefore, impair neural processes necessary for adaptive experience dependent behaviour and thus reduce the fitness of pollin...

Honey bee navigation is an actively investigated field but the knowledge about the neural correlates of goal directed long distance navigation remains mostly unknown. We recorded single neuron activity during flight in a natural environment. Bees were trained to a feeder 400 m from the hive. Spiking activity of high order interneurons (mushroom bod...

The search for neural correlates of operant and observational learning requires a combination of two (experimental) conditions that are very difficult to combine: stable recording from high order neurons and free movement of the animal in a rather natural environment. We developed a virtual environment (VE) that simulates a simplified 3D world for...

(A) Example of all single unit waveforms (500 events) for one animal with their corresponding principal component analysis (B). (B) Upper panel: Three dimensional plot of principal component analysis for all units in (A). Lower panel: all units crossing minus three standard deviations lower left panel and crossing plus three standard deviations low...

Video shows a honeybee walking in the virtual environment. The free-flying bee was trained in a T-maze to associate yellow with a sucrose reward and blue with a potassium chloride punishment. Subsequently the animal was transferred to the VE and tested in a scenario similar to the point of decision in the T-maze. When the animal walked toward one s...

Elongated landscape features like forest edges, rivers, roads or boundaries of fields are particularly salient landmarks for navigating animals. Here, we ask how honeybees learn such structures and how they are used during their homing flights after being released at an unexpected location (catch-and-release paradigm). The experiments were performe...

Supplemental Material A for Figure 5 (ground structures).

Supplemental Material A for Figure 6 (panorama).

Supplemental Material A for Figure 6 (panorama).

Supplemental Material A for Figure 4 (panorama).

Supplemental Material A for Figure 6 (ground structures).

Supplemental Material B for Figure 4 (ground structures).

Supplemental Material A for Figure 5 (panorama).

Over the last decades, honeybees have been a fascinating model to study insect navigation. While there is some controversy about the complexity of underlying neural correlates, the research of honeybee navigation makes progress through both the analysis of flight behavior and the synthesis of agent models. Since visual cues are believed to play a c...

Cognitive impairments can be devastating for quality of life, and thus, preventing or counteracting them is of great value. To this end, the present study exploits the potential of the plant Rhodiola rosea and identifies the constituent ferulic acid eicosyl ester [icosyl-(2 E )-3-(4-hydroxy-3-methoxyphenyl)-prop-2-enoate (FAE-20)] as a memory enhan...

Honeybees, Apis mellifera, perform re-orientation flights to learn about the new surroundings of the hive when their hive is transported to a new location. Since the pattern of re-orientation flights has not yet been studied, we asked whether this form of exploratory behavior differs from the well described exploratory orientation flights performed...

Trajectories of re-orientation flights of bees that belonged to hive 1. The figure shows all flights of bees for which only one flight was recorded that are not included in the figures of the main text. In (a) the last signal at the hive is missing. The hive is marked by the triangle. (TIF)

Examples of flight trajectories of bees with more than one recorded re-orientation flight. All four bees belonged to hive 1. Re-orientation flights that took the bees not further than 30 m away from the hive (a: flights 2 and 3; b: flight 1, c: flight 1, d: flight 1) are hard to see in this figure since they consist of only a few radar signals clos...

Textfiles of all flights. The duration of a flight was measured at the hive. Bees usually flew low at the start and end of their flight and could not be detected by the radar during this time. Therefore, the time between the first and the last signal in the textfile deviates from the flight duration recorded at the hive by monitoring take off and l...

Data set flight segments. (XLSX)

Data set flight parameters. (XLSX)

In the insect brain, the mushroom body is a higher order brain area that is key to memory formation and sensory processing. Mushroom body (MB) extrinsic neurons leaving the output region of the MB, the lobes and the peduncle, are thought to be especially important in these processes. In the honeybee brain, a distinct class of MB extrinsic neurons,...

A3 neuron innervation of the mushroom body. This orthogonal view of A3 innervation shows arborisation of an A3 neuron in the anterior part of the vertical lobe. Note the innervation of the vertical lobe in the first 30 μm from n-anterior. Lines indicate the respective projection plane XY, YZ or XZ. LCA, lateral calyx; MCA, medial calyx; VL, vertica...

Table includes all A3 neurons stained in this study. Detailed descriptions of each staining includes name in the insect brain data base, figures that show the staining, and anatomical details of the cells. Single-cell staining are indicated compared to multi-cell staining. The location of the soma in the dorsal or ventral cluster is noted. Innervat...

The mushroom body (MB) in insects is known as a major center for associative learning and memory, although exact locations for the correlating memory traces remain to be elucidated. Here, we asked whether presynaptic boutons of olfactory projection neurons (PNs) in the main input site of the MB undergo neuronal plasticity during classical odor-rewa...

On 28 April 2018 the European Parliament voted for a complete and permanent ban on all outdoor uses of the three most commonly used neonicotinoid pesticides. With the partial exception of the state of Ontario, Canada, governments elsewhere have failed to take action. Below is a letter, signed by 232 scientists from around the world, urgently callin...

How complex is the memory structure that honeybees use to navigate? Recently, an insect-inspired parsimonious spiking neural network model was proposed that enabled simulated ground-moving agents to follow learned routes. We adapted this model to flying insects and evaluate the route following performance in three different worlds with gradually de...

The honey bee dance communication system is one of the most popular examples of animal communication. Forager bees communicate the flight vector towards food, water, or resin sources to nestmates by performing a stereotypical motion pattern on the comb surface in the darkness of the hive. Bees that actively follow the circles of the dancer, so call...

The antennal lobe (AL) of an insect is the functional analog of the olfactory bulb in mammals. The first-level synaptic interaction of large numbers of multiple types of olfactory receptor neurons (OSNs) with AL interneurons serves the function of reliably coding a vast range of odorants and their mixtures and the separation between odor identity a...

The mushroom body (MB) in the insect brain is composed of a large number of densely packed neurons called Kenyon cells (KCs) (Drosophila, 2200; honeybee, 170,000). In most insect species, the MB consists of two caplike dorsal structures, the calyces, which contain the dendrites of KCs, and two to four lobes formed by collaterals of branching KC axo...

This volume presents wide-ranging views of behavioral and theoretical approaches to learning and memory. The introduction discusses the biology of learning and memory and emphasizes the value of a comparative approach. It proceeds to theories, processes, and mechanisms of learning and memory formation as discussed in this volume. Next, these questi...

This volume presents wide-ranging views of behavioral and theoretical approaches to learning and memory. The introduction discusses the biology of learning and memory and emphasizes the value of a comparative approach. It proceeds to theories, processes, and mechanisms of learning and memory formation as discussed in this volume. Next, these questi...

Please follow this link to the article: http://jeb.biologists.org/content/early/2017/08/30/jeb.154518?with-ds=yes Learning and memory play a central role in behavior and communication of foraging bees. We already showed that chronic uptake of the neonicotinoid thiacloprid affects the behavior of honey bees in the field. Foraging behavior, homing s...

So far no data exist about the neural correlates of social interaction in the honeybee. We record from multiple mushroom body extrinsic neurons during social interaction in a small functioning honeybee colony. The recorded animal is freely moving and interacts with colony members. Neural activity increases frequently during interactions. Furthermor...

Invertebrates have proven to be extremely useful models for gaining insights into the neural and molecular mechanisms of sensory processing, motor control, and higher functions, such as feeding behavior, learning and memory, navigation, and social behavior. Their enormous contribution to neuroscience is due, in part, to the relative simplicity of i...

Die Tierphilosophie ist eines der lebendigsten Felder der Gegenwartsphilosophie. Im Mittelpunkt stehen bislang die Frage nach dem Geist der Tiere, das Problem des Tier-Mensch-Unterschiedes und die Themenfelder der Tierethik. Die auf drei Bände angelegte 'Philosophie der Tierforschung' wirft einen neuen Blick auf dieses Gebiet und ergänzt es durch e...

Humans and other mammals as well as honeybees learn a unilateral association between an olfactory stimulus presented to one side and a reward. In all of them, the learned association can be behaviourally retrieved via contralateral stimulation, suggesting inter-hemispheric communication. However, the underlying neuronal circuits are largely unknown...

Ca2+ imaging techniques were applied to investigate the neuronal behavior of projection neurons in the honeybee antennal lobe to examine the effects of long lasting adaptation on odorant coding. Responses to 8 test odorants were measured before, during and after an odor adaptation phase. Bees were exposed to the adapting odor for 30 minutes. Test o...

Exploration is an elementary and fundamental form of learning about the structure of the world [1-3]. Little is known about what exactly is learned when an animal seeks to become familiar with the environment. Navigating animals explore the environment for safe return to an important place (e.g., a nest site) and to travel between places [4]. Flyin...