Understanding thermal sensory perception for social thermoregulation

Animals that work together to detect changes in their environment could be better able to withstand changes in our climate. Social insects, like Honeybees (Apis mellifera), cooperate to manage their environment by working together to cool their colony when it is hot. Honeybees fan in social groups at the entrance of their colony, which allows for hot air to move out and cool air to move in, maintaining an ideal temperature of 35 degrees Celsius. This allows their brood to develop properly, ensuring population growth and survival. However, we do not understand exactly what sensory triggers this behavioral response, which likely include social and thermal information. Transient Receptor Potential (TRP) channels provide a sensation of temperature in honeybees. Therefore, using pharmacological techniques of blocking or activating TRP channels, we hypothesize a modulation in the fanning response. Specifically, we predict that injecting bees with a known blocker of these channels will prevent them from sensing temperature, and as a result, affect their ability to properly show fanning behavior, while injecting them with a known inducer will increase fanning response. This would demonstrate that temperature sensing with TRP channels is a crucial input into honeybees' ability to properly thermoregulate their colonies, overall helping us further understand how social animals detect change in their environment, which could lead to additional understanding of social insects’ ability to survive climate change