Browsing by Author "Abramson, Charles I."
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Item Aversive conditioning in honey bees (Apis mellifera anatolica): A comparison of drones and workers(Company Biologists, 2013-11) Dinges, Christopher W.; Avalos, Arian; Abramson, Charles I.; Craig, David Philip Arthur; Austin, Zoe M.; Varnon, Christopher A.; Dal, Fatıma Nur; Giray, Tuğrul; Uludağ Üniversitesi/Mustafakemalpaşa Meslek Yüksekokulu/Arıcılık Geliştirme-Uygulama ve Araştırma Merkezi.; 0000-0003-4383-4681; 55903231400; 6602901451Honey bees provide a model system to elucidate the relationship between sociality and complex behaviors within the same species, as females (workers) are highly social and males (drones) are more solitary. We report on aversive learning studies in drone and worker honey bees (Apis mellifera anatolica) in escape, punishment and discriminative punishment situations. In all three experiments, a newly developed electric shock avoidance assay was used. The comparisons of expected and observed responses were performed with conventional statistical methods and a systematic randomization modeling approach called object oriented modeling. The escape experiment consisted of two measurements recorded in a master-yoked paradigm: frequency of response and latency to respond following administration of shock. Master individuals could terminate an unavoidable shock triggered by a decrementing 30 s timer by crossing the shuttlebox centerline following shock activation. Across all groups, there was large individual response variation. When assessing group response frequency and latency, master subjects performed better than yoked subjects for both workers and drones. In the punishment experiment, individuals were shocked upon entering the shock portion of a bilaterally wired shuttlebox. The shock portion was spatially static and unsignalled. Only workers effectively avoided the shock. The discriminative punishment experiment repeated the punishment experiment but included a counterbalanced blue and yellow background signal and the side of shock was manipulated. Drones correctly responded less than workers when shock was paired with blue. However, when shock was paired with yellow there was no observable difference between drones and workers.Item A colony defence difference between two honey bee subspecies (Apis mellifera cypria and Apis mellifera cacasica)(Taylor & Francis, 2012) Kandemir, İrfan; Abramson, Charles I.; Serrano, Eddie; Song, Daniel; Wells, Harrington; Çakmak, İbrahim; Çakmak, Selvinar S.; Aydın, Levent; Uludağ Üniversitesi/Mustafa Kemal Paşa Yüksek Okulu/Arıcılığı Geliştirme-Uygulama ve Araştırma Merkezi.; Uludağ Üniversitesi/Veterinerlik Fakültesi/Arıcılık Geliştirme ve Araştırma Merkezi.; AAH-2558-2021; 57207796431; 55184998300; 55808198600Colony defence differences between two honey bee subspecies Apis mellifera cypria and A. m. caucasica are reported. A. m. cypria formed significantly (P < 0.001) more defensive balls of bees covering intruders than A. m. caucasica in response to a predatory wasp attack. Although there were differences in ball formation, the number of bees attacking the wasp did not differ in the balls that were formed (P > 0.10). In addition to ball formation, A. m. cypria was tested for differences in frequency of attacking, shaking, shimmering, line formation and lunging when confronted with a live tethered wasp, dead tethered wasp or just the tethering line. Only the dead wasp elicited differential response. It is suggested that these difference in anti-predator behaviour are related to the high predation risks of A. m. cyrpria. Caucasian bees and their hybrids do not face to such wasp predation due to the cool weather in the Caucasus region.Item Conditioning methods for farm animals: A mini review(Uludağ Üniversitesi, 2012-12-10) Varnon, Christopher A.; Martin, Abigail L.; Abramson, Charles I.This review briefly surveys the range of conditioning methods used in the study of learning for economically important farm animals. We begin by discussing the importance of conditioning methods, provide an overview of non-associative and associative learning and follow by showing how these methods are applied to chickens, cows, horses, goats and sheep. Information on general resources is also provided.Item Feature-positive and feature-negative learning in honey bees(Company Biologists, 2012-09-10) Abramson, Charles I.; Duell, Meghan E.; Bates-Albers, Leah M.; Zuniga, Enoc M.; Pendegraft, Loma; Barnett, Amanda; Cowo, Carmen L.; Warren, Joshua J.; Albritton-Ford, Aaron C.; Wells, Harrington; Çakmak, İbrahim; Uludağ Üniversitesi/Mustafakemalpaşa Meslek Yüksekokulu/Arıcılık Araştırma Merkezi.; AAH-2558-2021; 57207796431Honey bees (Apis mellifera anatolica) were subjected to sequential trials where they were given the choice between a featurepositive and a feature-negative feeding plate. The 'feature' being manipulated is the presence of a single blue circle among three circles marking the location of a small sucrose reward. That is, a 'feature-negative' target had three white circles, while a 'featurepositive' target had two white circles and one blue one. Two experiments were performed. In both experiments, each bee was tested under two different reward scenarios (treatments). In the first experiment, during the feature-positive treatment bees received 4 μl of 2 mol l-1 sucrose when choosing the feature-positive plate, but received 4 μl of saturated NaCl solution (saltwater) when choosing the feature-negative plate. During the feature-negative treatment, bees were rewarded when visiting the featurenegative plate, while visitation to the feature-positive plate only offered bees the saltwater. The second experiment was a repeat of the first except that pure water was offered instead of saltwater in the non-rewarding feeding plate. As an experimental control, a set of bees was offered sequential trials where both the feature-positive and feature-negative plates offered the sucrose reward. Bee feeding plate choice differed between the feature-positive and feature-negative treatments in both experiments. Bees favored the feeding plate type with the sucrose reward in each treatment, and never consumed the saltwater or pure water when encountered in either treatment. Further, behavior of bees during both the feature-positive and feature-negative treatments differed from that of control bees. However, neither feature-positive nor feature-negative learning reached high levels of success. Further, a feature-positive effect was seen when pure water was offered; bees learned to solve the feature-positive problem more rapidly. When we tested bees using simply the choice of blue versus white targets, where one color held the sucrose reward and the other the saltwater, a bee's fidelity to the color offering the sucrose reward quickly reached very high levels.Item Nectar odor and honey bee foragıng(Uludağ Üniversitesi, 2010) Wells, Patrick H.; Wenner, Adrian M.; Abramson, Charles I.; Barthell, John F.; Wells, HarringtonPractical experience has shown that honey bees visit a tremendous variety of flowering plant species, both in terms of flower morphology and floral reward. However, their ability to find “nectar” extends far beyond plants themselves. They are in many respects the ultimate generalist forager, which has been a boon for modern agriculture. But, how can they associate such a variety of “objects” with food? Odors turn out to be a key component in other species of social bees.Item Stress protein responses in honey bees: Is it useful to measure stress responses of individual bees in the hive(Uludağ Üniversitesi, 2009) Hranitz, John M.; Barthell, John F.; Abramson, Charles I.; Brubaker, Kristen D.; Wells, HarringtonEusociality provides honey bees a broad repertoire of responses, through a colony’s division of labor, to maintain hive homeostasis in the countenance of environmental perturbations. The hive dynamics instrumented by workers must be balanced against losses during periods of stress. Stress proteins, a component of the cellular stress response that is already characterized in species from bacteria to man, provide molecular protection against many stressors at the organismal level of biological organization. A capacious stress protein literature reveals several general patterns. Exposure to sublethal stress increases cellular stress protein concentrations and improves survival to subsequent stress. While promoting survival during periods of stress, over-expression of stress proteins during development may diminish expression of performance traits important later in life under different circumstances. The relatively few studies that have investigated stress responses in bees reveal relationships with abiotic stress (i.e. temperature, toxins) and oxidative stress associated with flight and alcohol consumption. Given the economic importance of the honey bee and the need to better understand how agricultural factors (e.g., hive management practices, pesticides, natural enemies) affect colony performance, investigations of the association between the stress response and performance traits in individual bees should be pursued in the future.Item The use of honey bees to teach principles of learning(Uludağ Üniversitesi, 2007) Abramson, Charles I.; Mikson, T. Andrew; Wells, Harrington; Çakmak, İbrahim; Uludağ Üniversitesi/Mustafa Kemalpaşa Meslek Yüksek Okulu.Experiments are described with harnessed and free-flying forager honey bees suitable for classroom exercises and zoological/botanical park demonstrations. The experiments require bees to discriminate between two scents or two colored targets. Both experiments are easy to perform with minimal training, and the apparatus is inexpensive and constructed from common items such as plastic straws. Suggestions are provided on how the study of learning can be used to educate the general public and students about the importance of honey bees.Item The use of the hypo-osmotic swelling test, water test, and supravital staining in the evaluation of drone sperm(Springer France, 2012-01) Abramson, Charles I.; Nur, Zekariya; Çakmak, Selvinar Seven; Üstüner, Burcu; Çakmak, İbrahim; Ertürk, Melih; Sağırkaya, Hakan; Soylu, Mustafa Kemal; Uludağ Üniversitesi/Veteriner Fakültesi/Üreme ve Suni Tohumlama Anabilim Dalı.; Uludağ Üniversitesi/Mustafa Kemalpaşa Meslek Yüksek Okulu/Arıcılığı Geliştirme-Uygulama ve Araştırma Merkezi.; 0000-0002-1438-221X; AAH-2558-2021; AAG-7238-2021; AAH-8821-2021; AAH-2635-2021; 6508060684; 36027001700; 18937724600; 57207796431; 57219144425; 6602400461The aim of the present study was to investigate the suitability of the water test and hypo-osmotic swelling (HOS) test for analyzing honeybee semen. In particular, the relationships between these tests of the integrity of the sperm plasma membrane and tests of sperm motility and sperm viability were measured using SYBR-14/PI. To this end, semen was obtained from mature drones (16 days or older) collected from four colonies. The means of the per-drone sperm concentration, sperm motility, and live spermatozoa were 1.47 x 10(6), 76.0%, and 87.2%, respectively. The percentage of spermatozoa with swollen tails was 92.2% as measured with the water test. With the HOS tests at 50, 100, and 150 mOsm/kg, the percentages of spermatozoa with swollen tails were 94.2%, 90.5%, and 85.6%, respectively, after a 30-min incubation and 92.2%, 90.5%, and 88.0%, respectively, after a 60-min incubation. It was observed that subjecting honeybee spermatozoa to a hypo-osmotic solution resulted in clearly identifiable swollen-tail spermatozoa. The percentages of swollen-tail spermatozoa obtained using the water and HOS tests were higher than the percentages of viable and motile spermatozoa. Similar results were obtained using the water test and the HOS test at 50 mOsm/kg. It was concluded that HOS and water tests are suitable and simple measures of the functional integrity of the plasma membranes of bee spermatozoa, and they may be useful additions to standard methods of semen evaluation in mammals.Item Using free flying honey bees to teach principles of learning(Uludağ Üniversitesi, 2011) Abramson, Charles I.; Butler, Maria E.; Kurtz, Richard M.; Wells, Shawnda M.; Wells, HarringtonThis paper outlines procedures for using free flying honey bees in a choice discrimination task suitable for the classroom. Procedures for acquisition and extinction are described. The exercise is suitable for all levels of the educational system ranging from elementary school to college. We describe the details of the basic experiments. From this the possible experimental variations are vast and present students with the opportunity to explore many intriguing questions in the fields of animal behavior, behavioral ecology and psychology.