Summary
It has been possible — by transplantation of brain tissue (i.e. mushroom-bodies) — to perform an interindividual transfer of a learned time-signal in honeybees. The information of the donor bees becomes determinative for the temporal activity pattern of the recipients about 3 to 4 days following transplantation.
As seen from histological investigations done in parallel, the donor tissue is treated as a xenograft by the recipient's organism including disintegration and encapsulation processes. These observations give evidence for a humoral transfer of information.
The results are discussed from the point of view of the analysis of the mechanism of time reception.
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Dedicated to Prof. Dr. H. Autrum on the occasion of his 70th birthday
Supported by the Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur zu Mainz, the Stiftung Volkswagenwerk and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
All observations done were individual “per hand” registrations. We want to give thanks to all people in the department who helped us to do the experiments.
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Martin, U., Martin, H. & Lindauer, M. Transplantation of a time-signal in honeybees. J. Comp. Physiol. 124, 193–201 (1978). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00657051
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00657051