Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 18, 2025

RNAi-mediated Double Gene Knockdown and Gustatory Perception Measurement in Honey Bees Apis mellifera
Published on: July 25, 2013
Inhibitory signaling in collective social insect networks, is it indeed uncommon?
1Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, The A. Silberman Institute of Life Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.
Abstract:
Individual entities across levels of biological organization interact to reach collective decisions. In centralized neuronal networks, competing neural populations commonly accumulate information over time while increasing their own activity, and cross-inhibiting other populations until one group passes a given threshold. In social insects, there is good evidence for decisions mediated by positive feedbacks, but we found evidence for similar inhibitory signals only in honey bee (Apis mellifera) stop signals, and Pharaoh's ant- (Monomorium pharaonic) repellent pheromones, with only the former occasionally being used as cross-inhibition. We discuss whether these differences stem from insufficient research effort or represent genuine differences across levels of biological organization.
Related Concept Videos
Bacterial Signaling
Interactions Between Signaling Pathways
Convergence and divergence, and cross-talk between signaling pathways
Two distinct signaling pathways can converge on a single functional unit, which may either be a single protein or a complex of proteins. The response is either functionally distinct or synergistic between the two pathways but different from the response...
Gene Regulation in Microbial Communities: Quorum Sensing
Feedback Inhibition
Yeast Signaling
Hedgehog Signaling Pathway

