A Snapshot seminar hosted by the School of Physiology, Pharmacology and Neuroscience
Host: James Hodge
After the talk, there will also be coffee and biscuits in the tearoom, which will provide an opportunity to network or catch up with colleagues.
Please get in touch with James (James.Hodge@bristol.ac.uk) if you would like to meet with her after her talk for a 1-to-1 conversation.
Abstract: Bees feed primarily on floral nectar and pollen. Nectar contains sugars, as well as various secondary compounds, including amino acids and plant metabolites. Pesticides also end up in nectar, posing a risk to pollinators. Relatively little is known about what bees can taste in nectar, and how they use this information to guide foraging decisions. We have found that bees possess a specialized mechanism for detecting sugars, involving three of the four gustatory receptor neurons contained within taste sensilla located on the mouthparts. This mechanism facilitates high-resolution detection of sugar compounds and may facilitate sugar discrimination. Despite their high affinity for sugars, bees display poor ability to discriminate potentially toxic compounds in nectar. I will explore mechanisms of bitter compound detection in bees and discuss how the presence of toxic nectar compounds affects foraging.