Understanding how honey bee flight and senescence are connected through oxidative stress (880.1)

Abstract

Honey bee age, behavior, functional senescence, and lifespan are easily manipulated independently of each other while in its natural environment and flying honey bees have the highest mass specific metabolic rate measured to date making the honey bee the ideal system to test the connection between oxidative stress and behaviors with a high aerobic expenditure. The main objectives of this work were to (a) determine if there is a cause‐effect relationship between honey bee flight and oxidative stress by comparing damage accrued from intense flight bouts to damage accrued from galactose treatment, which is a known proxy of oxidative stress in other insects, and (b) experimentally manipulate the duration and intensity of honey bee flight along with age to determine their effects on ROS accumulation and the associated enzymatic antioxidant protective mechanisms. Levels of 8‐hydroxy‐deoxyguanosine, a marker of DNA damage were increased in flying bees with high amounts of flight experience. We also saw an imbalance between pro‐oxidants and anti‐oxidants in bees with high amounts of flight experience. These data suggest flight‐induced oxidative stress plays a significant role in functional senescence of foraging honey bees that spend most of each day on the wing. Additionally, these data suggest that highly metabolic behaviors may contribute to oxidative stress and senescence of highly‐metabolic organisms.