Guardian report on bee behaviour

[Neils]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/sep/16/bee-study-behaviour

Some wooly "facts" about bees (all workers are genetically identical sisters!) from the Guardian as to perhaps be expected, and it's a Shame that the link to the actual paper appears not to work.

It'd be nice to see a more informed analysis of the study and its implications as the article omits so much that would seem to be related, such as the link/relationship to the age of the worker although the ability of workers to revert to an "earlier" role is vaguely mentioned.

[gavin]

OK, here's my scientist's sceptical interpretation of that work. More the hyperbole and reporting than the work.

In 1981, yes 1981 (that's 31 years ago), there was a paper (Bird et al) that showed that mouse genes (in this case large blocks of genes which themselves code for machinery to make other genes work) can have methyl groups attached to their nucleic acid bases, or not. This was extended to plants a couple of years later when, as a youngish PhD student, I saw a talk by Dick Flavell on this topic. It was fairly clear at that time that it should be a reversible process and that it was associated with whether the genes were on or off.

Now it seems that - as predicted then - genes that are off have different methylation patterns than those that are on. Is this the ultimate control, the explanation for Life, The Universe, and Everything? Nope. Folk don't know whether this is cause or effect (a common problem in science and certainly in beekeeping science), and they don't know what triggers this. In this case it is part of a cascade in that the genes affected are controlling genes, but something else gives the system a push. As far as I can tell.

Nice stuff, but fairly predictable in my view. I'm unconvinced by the 'never before' quote. Something scientists always like to imply to help get the work published.

[Neils]

From my distinctly layman's view of the guardian report rather than the actual research, it certainly didn't live up to the byline that it explained why bees have or assume different roles within the hive. I took it more as perhaps being able to expand our depth of understanding as to how those role changes are managed/controlled biologically by the bees.

I haven't tracked down the paper yet and generally this is an area of bee development that my knowledge is weak on generally in any case.

[gavin]

The paper is here but without a subscription I think that you will be limited to an abstract and maybe some figures.

http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nn.3218.html

There is more here:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120916160845.htm