Behavioral specialization is key to the success of social insects and often compartmentalized among colony members leading to division of labor. Response thresholds to task-specific stimuli proximally regulate behavioral specialization but their neurobiological regulation is not understood. Here, we show that response thresholds to task-relevant stimuli correspond to the specialization of three behavioral phenotypes of honeybee workers. Quantitative neuropeptidome comparisons suggest two tachykinin-related peptides (TRP2 and TRP3) as candidates for the modification of these response thresholds. Based on our characterization of their receptor binding and downstream signaling, we then confirm the functional role of tachykinins: TRP2 injection and RNAi cause consistent, opposite effects on responsiveness to task-specific stimuli of each behaviorally specialized phenotype but not to stimuli that are unrelated to their tasks. Thus, our study demonstrates that TRP-signaling regulates the degree of task-specific responsiveness of specialized honeybee workers and may control the context-specificity of behavior in animals more generally.

中文翻译：

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行为专门化的神经调节：速激肽信号传导抑制蜜蜂工人的特定任务行为反应性。

行为专业化是社交昆虫成功的关键，并且经常在殖民地成员之间分隔开来，导致分工。对任务特定刺激的反应阈值可近端调节行为专业化，但其神经生物学调节尚不清楚。在这里，我们表明对任务相关刺激的响应阈值对应于蜜蜂工人的三种行为表型的专业化。定量神经肽组比较表明，两种速激肽相关肽（TRP2和TRP3）可作为修饰这些反应阈值的候选物。根据我们对它们的受体结合和下游信号转导的表征，然后我们确认速激肽的功能作用：TRP2注射和RNAi引起一致，对每个行为特定表型对任务特定刺激的反应性具有相反的影响，但对与其任务无关的刺激则没有相反的影响。因此，我们的研究表明，TRP信号调节了专门的蜜蜂工人的任务特定响应程度，并且可能更一般地控制动物行为的上下文特定性。