Data from: Age-related mushroom body expansion in male sweat bees and bumble bees

A well-documented phenomenon among social insects is that brain changes
occur prior to or at the onset of certain experiences, potentially serving
to prime the brain for specific tasks. This insight comes almost
exclusively from studies considering developmental maturation in females.
As a result, it is unclear whether age-related brain plasticity is
consistent across sexes, and to what extent developmental patterns differ.
Using confocal microscopy and volumetric analyses, we investigated
age-related brain changes coinciding with sexual maturation in the males
of the facultatively eusocial sweat bee, Megalopta genalis, and the
obligately eusocial bumble bee, Bombus impatiens. We compared volumetric
measurements between newly eclosed and reproductively mature males kept
isolated in the lab. We found expansion of the mushroom bodies—brain
regions associated with learning and memory—with maturation, which were
consistent across both species. This age-related plasticity may,
therefore, play a functionally-relevant role in preparing male bees for
mating, and suggests that developmentally-driven neural restructuring can
occur in males, even in species where it is absent in females.