This one is interesting, though I caution it is a Pre-Print: A defined community of core gut microbiota members promotes cognitive performance in honey bees <https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.01.03.522593v1.full> The honey bee (Apis mellifera) is emerging as a useful model to unravel the proximate mechanisms underlying the effect of the microbiota on complex cognitive and behavioural phenotypes 9 <https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.01.03.522593v1.full#ref-9> -11 <https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.01.03.522593v1.full#ref-11> . Despite a relatively simple brain (1 million neurons), honey bees exhibit impressive cognitive skills that have been studied under laboratory conditions for over 60 years 12 <https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.01.03.522593v1.full#ref-12> ,13 <https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.01.03.522593v1.full#ref-13> . Honey bee workers harbour a simple and natural gut community of 8-10 bacterial phylotypes which can be cultured under laboratory conditions and inoculated in GF [germ free] bees 14 <https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.01.03.522593v1.full#ref-14> ,15 <https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.01.03.522593v1.full#ref-15> Our results show that colonisation with the reconstituted community of 11 strains representing the five core members of the honey bee gut microbiota significantly improved bees' olfactory learning and memory performance while none of the community members alone could recapitulate those effects. If ultimately proved scientifically valid, might yield some clues about why resistance factors may appear more efficacious in certain environments- might be in part due to the forage picture. *********************************************** The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html