Honeybee workers spend their first few weeks as young adults tending the colony's brood. Later, they shift jobs to foraging for food outside the colony. When researchers fed the young bees candy spiked with the molecule ethyl oleate, the young bees continued to babysit and delayed the job shift to foraging. What would it require to demonstrate that ethyl oleate normally acts as a pheromone, not as an endocrine or paracrine signal?

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Pheromones are signals released by one individual that are received by another individual of the same species. Therefore, demonstrating that ethyl oleate is released into the air by another individual of the same species would provide evidence that it is acting as a pheromone. Endocrine signals are hormones released by glands within an individual's body and paracrine signals are signals that act on nearby cells within an individual's body, so demonstrating that ethyl oleate acts as a pheromone would exclude these possibilities. Demonstrating that ethyl oleate binds to a receptor and initiates a series of responses could support the idea that it is a signaling molecule, but it would not necessarily demonstrate that it is acting as a pheromone specifically. Likewise, demonstrating that ethyl oleate is released by a predator and causes a behavioral change in the prey would demonstrate that it is a signaling molecule, but not necessarily that it is a pheromone specifically.

Honeybee Workers Spend Their First Few Weeks as Young Adults