I've started experiments to test this concept in bees, where the sensory cells and glomerular system are much simpler and more accessable than in vertebrates and invite experimental manipulations. In some intial results, we've found that the glomerular region in bees can memorize odors, but interacts with higher brain centers for evaluating and comparing odors. I've also found that bees with dramatically-reduced glomeruli can still discriminate odors, so normal glomerular structure may not be crucial for odor comparison. I'm presently using immunocytochemistry to search for molecular changes that mark glomeruli involved the categorization and memory of specific odors, and I think that this will become an exciting line of inquiry. Caste and odor processing in social insects.
Honeybees have a remarkable social organization, most of which is maintained by odor cues.
I have started experiments to look for any changes in the odor memory capabilities of adult workers engaged in different tasks, as either nurses, guards, or foragers. Preliminary results show that guards and foragers are much more prone to generalize from a trained odor to a new odor than are nurse bees. I hope to collaborate with several other honeybee labs to develop experiments that tease apart these two factors. Honeybees are only the best known of a wide variety of social insects that includes many species of termites, wasps, ants and other bees. Caste-dependent odor learning and memory in these other insects could show underlying similarities or significant differences from the honeybee pattern.