Patterns of pollen and nectar foraging specialization by bumblebees over multiple timescales using RFID
Affiliation
Univ Arizona, Grad Interdisciplinary Program Entomol & Insect SUniv Arizona, Lunar & Planetary Lab
Univ Arizona, Dept Ecol & Evolutionary Biol
Issue Date
2017-02-09
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NATURE PUBLISHING GROUPCitation
Patterns of pollen and nectar foraging specialization by bumblebees over multiple timescales using RFID 2017, 7:42448 Scientific ReportsJournal
Scientific ReportsRights
© The Author(s) 2017. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.Collection Information
This item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at repository@u.library.arizona.edu.Abstract
The ecological success of social insects is frequently ascribed to improvements in task performance due to division of labour amongst workers. While much research has focused on improvements associated with lifetime task specialization, members of colonies can specialize on a given task over shorter time periods. Eusocial bees in particular must collect pollen and nectar rewards to survive, but most workers appear to mix collection of both rewards over their lifetimes. We asked whether bumblebees specialize over timescales shorter than their lifetime. We also explored factors that govern such patterns, and asked whether reward specialists made more foraging bouts than generalists. In particular, we described antennal morphology and size of all foragers in a single colony and related these factors to each forager's complete foraging history, obtained using radio frequency identification (RFID). Only a small proportion of foragers were lifetime specialists; nevertheless, >50% of foragers specialized daily on a given reward. Contrary to expectations, daily and lifetime reward specialists were not better foragers (being neither larger nor making more bouts); larger bees with more antennal olfactory sensilla made more bouts, but were not more specialized. We discuss causes and functions of short and long-term patterns of specialization for bumblebee colonies.ISSN
2045-2322PubMed ID
28181584Version
Final published versionSponsors
University of Arizona Graduate & Professional Student Council; University of Arizona Center for Insect Science; National Science Foundation [IOS-0921280]Additional Links
http://www.nature.com/articles/srep42448ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1038/srep42448
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Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as © The Author(s) 2017. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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