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1.
We studied the extent to which worker honey bees acquire information from waggle dances throughout their careers as foragers. Small groups of foragers were monitored from time of orientation flights to time of death and all in-hive behaviors relating to foraging were recorded. In the context of a novice forager finding her first food source, 60% of the bees relied, at least in part, on acquiring information from waggle dances (being recruited) rather than searching independently (scouting). In the context of an experienced forager whose foraging has been interrupted, 37% of the time the bees resumed foraging by following waggle dances (being reactivated) rather than examining the food source on their own (inspecting). And in the context of an experienced forager engaged in foraging, 17% of the time the bees initiated a foraging trip by following a waggle dance. Such dance following was observed much more often after an unsuccessful than after a successful foraging trip. Successful foragers often followed dances just briefly, perhaps to confirm that the kind of flowers they had been visiting were still yielding forage. Overall, waggle dance following for food discovery accounted for 12–25% of all interactions with dancers (9% by novice foragers and 3–16% by experienced foragers) whereas dance following for reactivation and confirmation accounted for the other 75–88% (26% for reactivation and 49–62% for confirmation). We conclude that foragers make extensive use of the waggle dance not only to start work at new, unfamiliar food sources but also to resume work at old, familiar food sources. 相似文献
2.
Information exchange of environmental cues facilitates decision-making processes among members of insect societies. In honeybee
foraging, it is unknown how the odor cues of a resource are relayed to inactive nest mates to enable resource exploitation
at specific scented sources. It is presumed that bees need to follow the dance or to be involved in trophallaxis with a successful
forager to obtain the discovered floral scent. With this in mind, we evaluated the influence of food scent relayed through
in-hive interactions and the subsequent food choices. Results obtained from five colonies demonstrated that bees arriving
at a feeding area preferred to land at a feeder carrying the odor currently exploited by the trained forager. The bees that
landed at this feeder also showed more in-hive encounters with the trained forager than the individuals that landed at the
alternative scented feeder. The most frequent interactions before landing at the correct feeder were body contacts with the active forager, a behavior that involves neither dance following nor trophallaxis. In
addition, a reasonable proportion of successful newcomers showed no conspicuous interactions with the active forager. Results
suggest that different sources of information can be integrated inside the hive to establish an odor-rewarded association
useful to direct honeybees to a feeding site. For example, simple contacts with foragers or food exchanges with non-active
foragers seem to be enough to choose a feeding site that carries the same scent collected by the focal forager. 相似文献
3.
The study of location specification in recruitment communication by bees has focused on two dimensions: direction and distance from the nest. Yet the third dimension, height above ground, may be significant in the tall and dense forest habitats of stingless bees. Foragers of the stingless bee Scaptotrigona postica recruit to a specific three-dimensional location by laying a scent trail. Stingless bees in the genus Melipona are thought to have a more sophisticated recruitment system that communicates distance through sounds inside the nest and direction through pointing zig-zag flights outside the nest. However, prior research on Melipona has not examined height communication or even established that foragers can recruit newcomers to a specific location. We used identical paired feeders to investigate recruitment to food in M panamica on Barro Colorado Island, Panama. We trained foragers from an observation hive to one feeder and monitored both feeders for the subsequent arrival of newcomers. We changed the relative positions of the feeders to test for correct direction, distance, and canopy-level communication. A 40-m canopy tower located inside the forest enabled us to examine canopy-level communication. We found that M. panamica foragers can recruit to a specific (1) direction, (2) distance, and (3) canopy level. To test the possibility that foragers accomplish this by means of a scent trail, we placed the colony on one shore of a small cove and trained bees over 116 m of open water to a feeder located on the opposite shore. We also placed a second feeder on this shore, equidistant from the colony but 20 m from the first feeder. Significantly more newcomers consistently arrived at the feeder visited by the foragers. Thus foragers evidently do not need a scent trail to communicate direction. Inside the nest, a forager produces pulsed sounds while visibly vibrating her wings after returning from a good food source. She is attended by other bees who cluster and hold their antennae around her, following her as she rapidly spins clockwise and counterclockwise. Locational information may be encoded in this behavior. However, foragers may also directly lead newcomers to the food source. Further experiments are planned to test for such piloting and other communication mechanisms. 相似文献
4.
Sean O'Donnell 《Behavioral ecology and sociobiology》1998,43(4-5):327-331
Dominance interactions affected patterns of non-reproductive division of labor (polyethism) in the eusocial wasp Mischocyttarus mastigophorus. Socially dominant individuals foraged for food (nectar and insect prey) at lower rates than subordinate individuals. In
contrast, dominant wasps performed most of the foraging for the wood pulp used in nest construction. Social dominance also
affected partitioning of materials collected by foragers when they returned to the nest. Wood pulp loads were never shared
with nest mates, while food loads, especially insect prey, were often partitioned with other wasps. Dominant individuals on
the nest were more likely to take food from arriving foragers than subordinate individuals. The role of dominance interactions
in regulating polyethism has evolved in the eusocial paper wasps (Polistinae). Both specialization by foragers and task partitioning
have increased from basal genera (independent-founding wasps, including Mischo-cyttarus spp.) to more derived genera (swarm-founding Epiponini). Dominance interactions do not regulate forager specialization or
task partitioning in epiponines. I hypothesize that these changes in polyethism were enabled by the evolution of increased
colony size in the Epiponini.
Received: 8 December 1997 / Accepted after revision: 28 March 1998 相似文献
5.
Potential mechanisms for the communication of height and distance by a stingless bee, Melipona panamica 总被引:1,自引:1,他引:0
This study investigates the recruitment communication mechanisms of a stingless bee, Melipona panamica, whose foragers can evidently communicate the three-dimensional location of a good food source. To determine if the bees
communicate location information inside or outside the nest, we conducted removal experiments by training marked foragers
to one of two identical feeders and then separating these experienced foragers from potential recruits as they left the nest.
The feeders were positioned to test the communication of each dimension. The results show that recruits do not simply follow
experienced foragers to the food source. Height and distance are communicated within the nest, while direction is communicated
outside the nest. We then examined the pulsed sounds produced by recruiting foragers. While unloading food, recruiting foragers
produced several short pulses and one or more very long pulses. On average, the longest unloading pulse per performance was
31–50% longer (P ≤ 0.018) for bees foraging on the forest floor than for bees foraging at the top of the forest canopy (40 m high). While
dancing, recruiting foragers produced sound pulses whose duration was positively correlated with the distance to the food
source (P < 0.001). Dancing recruiters also produced several short sound pulses followed by one or more long pulses. The longest dance
pulse per performance was 291 ± 194 ms for a feeder 25 m from the nest and 1858 ± 923 ms for a feeder 360 m away from the
nest. The mechanism of directional communication remains a mystery. However, the direction removal experiment demonstrates
that newcomers cannot use forager-deposited scent marks for long-distance orientation (>100 m from the nest).
Received: 25 September 1997 / Accepted after revision: 31 May 1998 相似文献
6.
Exploration and exploitation of food sources by social insect colonies: a revision of the scout-recruit concept 总被引:3,自引:3,他引:0
Social insect colonies need to explore and exploit multiple food sources simultaneously and efficiently. At the individual
level, this colony-level behaviour has been thought to be taken care of by two types of individual: scouts that independently
search for food, and recruits that are directed by nest mates to a food source. However, recent analyses show that this strict
division of labour between scouts and recruits is untenable. Therefore, a modified concept is presented here that comprises
the possible behavioural states of an individual forager (novice forager, scout, recruit, employed forager, unemployed experienced
forager, inspector and reactivated forager) and the transitions between them. The available empirical data are reviewed in
the light of both the old and the new concept, and probabilities for the different transitions are derived for the case of
the honey-bee. The modified concept distinguishes three types of foragers that may be involved in the exploration behaviour
of the colony: novice bees that become scouts, unemployed experienced bees that scout, and lost recruits, i.e. bees that discover
a food source other than the one to which they were directed to by their nest mates. An advantage of the modified concept
is that it allows for a better comparison of studies investigating the different roles performed by social insect foragers
during their individual foraging histories.
Received: 29 December 1999 / Revised: 25 February 2000 / Accepted: 16 October 2000 相似文献
7.
James C. Nieh 《Behavioral ecology and sociobiology》1998,43(2):133-145
8.
Walter M. Farina 《Behavioral ecology and sociobiology》1996,38(1):59-64
Dancing and trophallactic behaviour of forager honey bees, Apis mellifera ligustica >Spinola, that returned from an automatic feeder with a regulated flow rate of 50% weight-to-weight sucrose solution (range:
0.76–7.65 μl/min) were studied in an observation hive. Behavioural parameters of dancing, such as probability, duration and
dance tempo, increased with the nectar flow rate, though with very different response curves among bees. For trophallaxis
(i.e. mouth-to-mouth exchange of food), the frequency of giving-contacts and the transfer rate of the nectar increased with
the nectar flow rate. After unloading, foragers often approached other nest mates and begged for food before returning to
the food source. This behaviour was less frequent at higher nectar flow rates. These results show that the profitability of
a food source in terms of nectar flow rate had a quantitative representation in the hive through quantitative changes in trophallactic
and dancing behaviour. The role of trophallaxis as a communication channel during recruitment is discussed.
Received: 14 January 1995/Accepted after revision: 14 August 1995 相似文献
9.
Foragers of the stingless bees genus Melipona may produce intranidal sounds that are correlated with food location and quality. In this study, we provide the first detailed
analysis of pulsed sounds produced by Melipona panamica foragers while feeding on a carbohydrate food source. We trained foragers to a 2.5-M sucrose feeder under normal, ambient
temperature (23–33°C) and lower temperature (11–25°C) conditions. We recorded forager sounds under both conditions and tested
the effect of temperature of the thorax, feeder plate, and air on sound temporal characteristics. Forager energetic expenditure
and the number of pulses per visit were significantly higher in the cold condition than in the normal condition. Foragers
spent a longer time at the feeder under the cold condition than during the normal condition. Interpulse durations were significantly
shorter in the cold condition than in the normal condition and became progressively and significantly shorter at the end of
each performance. Thus, pulse production increased before departure. Foragers increased their thoracic temperatures above
ambient at all experimental air temperatures. Under chilled conditions, foragers had a significantly greater difference between
thorax temperature and ambient air temperature than under normal conditions. Foragers must achieve a minimum flight muscle
temperature before take-off, and thus forager sounds may be linked to muscle warm-up. 相似文献
10.
The regulation of protein collection through pollen foraging plays an important role in pollination and in the life of bee
colonies that adjust their foraging to natural variation in pollen protein quality and temporal availability. Bumble bees
occupy a wide range of habitats from the Nearctic to the Tropics in which they play an important role as pollinators. However,
little is known about how a bumble bee colony regulates pollen collection. We manipulated protein quality and colony pollen
stores in lab-reared colonies of the native North American bumble bee, Bombus impatiens. We debut evidence that bumble bee colony foraging levels and pollen storage behavior are tuned to the protein quality (range
tested: 17–30% protein by dry mass) of pollen collected by foragers and to the amount of stored pollen inside the colony.
Pollen foraging levels (number of bees exiting the nest) significantly increased by 55%, and the frequency with which foragers
stored pollen in pots significantly increased by 233% for pollen with higher compared to lower protein quality. The number
of foragers exiting the nest significantly decreased (by 28%) when we added one pollen load equivalent each 5 min to already
high intranidal pollen stores. In addition, pollen odor pumped into the nest is sufficient to increase the number of exiting
foragers by 27%. Foragers directly inspected pollen pots at a constant rate over 24 h, presumably to assess pollen levels.
Thus, pollen stores can act as an information center regulating colony-level foraging according to pollen protein quality
and colony need.
An erratum to this article can be found at 相似文献
11.
In an experimental set-up, a colony of the stingless bee Melipona fasciata demonstrated its ability to choose the better of two nectar sources. This colony pattern was a result of the following individual
behavioural decisions: continue foraging, abandon the feeder, restart foraging and initiate foraging. Only very rarely did
individuals switch from one feeder to the other. With the first combination of a rich (2.7 M) and a poor (0.8 M) feeder M. fasciata behaved differently from Apis mellifera. Recruitment occurred to both feeders and the poor feeder was not abandoned completely. When the poor feeder was set to 0.4 M,
M. fasciata abandoned the poor feeder rapidly and allocated more foragers to the rich feeder. These patterns were similar to those reported
for A. mellifera with the first combination of feeders. Over a sequence of 4 days, experienced bees increasingly determined the colony patterns,
and the major function of communication between workers became the reactivation of experienced foragers. The foragers modulated
their behaviour not only according to the profitability of the feeder, but also according to previous experience with profitability
switches. Thus, experience and communication together regulated colony foraging behaviour. These findings and the results of studies with honeybees suggest
that M. fasciata and honeybees use similar decision-making mechanisms and only partly different tools.
Received: 21 December 1998 / Accepted: 5 January 1999 相似文献
12.
We measured patterns of individual forager specialization and colony-wide rates of material input during periods of response to experimental nest damage and during control periods in three colonies of the tropical social wasp Polybia occidentalis.
Offprint requests to: S. O'Donnell 相似文献
(1) | Most foragers specialized on gathering a single material. While active, foragers rarely switched materials, and most switching that did occur was between functionally related materials — prey and nectar (food materials) or wood pulp and water (nest materials). |
(2) | Individuals differed greatly in activity level, here expressed as rate of foraging. Workers that foraged at high rates specialized on a single material in almost all cases. Specialized, highly active foragers comprised a minority (about 33%) of the working foragers in each colony, yet provided most of the material input. |
(3) | Individual wasps that responded to experimental nest damage by foraging for nest materials did not gather food on days preceding or following manipulation. |
(4) | On the colony level, nectar and prey foraging rates were not affected by foraging effort allocated to nest repair within days, or when comparing control days with days when damage was imposed. The emergency foraging response to nest damage in P. occidentalis did not depend on effort recruited away from food foraging. |
13.
Michael Simone-Finstrom Joel Gardner Marla Spivak 《Behavioral ecology and sociobiology》2010,64(10):1609-1617
Honeybees harvest and use plant resins in a mixture called propolis to seal cracks and smooth surfaces in the nest architecture.
Resins in the nest may be important in maintaining a healthy colony due to their antimicrobial properties. This study had
two main objectives: (1) Provide initial insight on the learning capabilities of resin foraging honeybees; (2) analyze the
sensitivity of resin foraging honeybees to tactile stimuli to elucidate its possible role as a mechanism behind resin foraging.
The first objective provides insight into the phenotype of these bees as compared to other forager types, while the second
creates a starting point for further work on behavioral mechanisms of resin foraging. Using tactile proboscis extension response
conditioning, we found that resin foragers learned to associate two different tactile stimuli, the presence of a gap between
two plates and a rough sandpaper surface, with a sucrose reward significantly better than pollen foragers. The results of
differential tactile conditioning exhibited no significant difference in the ability of resin foragers to discriminate between
smooth and rough surfaces as compared to pollen foragers. We also determined that the sucrose response thresholds (SRTs) of
returning resin foragers were lower compared to returning pollen foragers, but both resin foragers and pollen foragers learned
a floral odor equally well. This is the first study to examine SRTs and conditioning to tactile and olfactory stimuli with
resin foraging honeybees. The results provide new information and identify areas for future research on resin collectors,
an understudied foraging phenotype. 相似文献
14.
We have found that foraging bumblebees (Bombus hortorum, B. pascuorum, B. pratorum and B.␣terrestris) not only avoid flowers of Symphytum officinale that have recently been visited by conspecifics but also those that have been recently visited by heterospecifics. We propose
that the decision whether to reject or accept a flower is influenced by a chemical odour that is left on the corolla by a
forager, which temporarily repels subsequent foragers. Honeybees and carpenter bees have previously been shown to use similar
repellent forage-marking scents. We found that flowers were repellent to other bumblebee foragers for approximately 20 min
and also that after this time nectar levels in S. officinale flowers had largely replenished. Thus bumblebees could forage more efficiently by avoiding flowers with low rewards. Flowers
to which extracts of tarsal components were applied were more often rejected by wild B. terrestris workers than flowers that had head extracts applied, which in turn were more often rejected than flowers that had body extracts
applied. Extracts from four Bombus species were equally repellent to foragers. The sites of production of the repellent scent and its evolutionary origins are
discussed.
Received: 24 November 1997 / Accepted after revision: 8 March 1998 相似文献
15.
We analyzed the foraging and recruitment activity of single foragers ( Apis mellifera), exploiting low reward rates of sucrose solution. Single employed foragers (test bees) were allowed to collect 2.0 m sucrose solution delivered by a rate-feeder located at 160 m from the hive for 2 h. Flow rates varied between 1.4 and 5.5 µl/min. The individual behavior of the test bees was registered both at the hive and the food source, and the social output was calculated as the number of incoming bees arriving at the feeder per hour (henceforth: arrival rate). Incoming bees were captured once they landed at the feeder and assigned to one of three categories according to their foraging experience and hive interactions with the test bee: inspector, reactivated, or inexperienced bees. Both the waggle-runs performed per hour of foraging by test bees and the social output attained, increased with the reward rate. Also the number of hive-stays and the trophallactic-offering contacts performed by test bees were positively correlated with the arrival rate. For the highest reward rates, the duration of Nasonov-gland exposure at the feeding place was higher, and the arrival of most of the incoming bees occurred shortly after the test bee landed at the feeding platform. Thus, in addition to hive-interactions, landing of incoming bees at the food source is promoted by olfactory and/or visual information provided by the test bees. The proportions of inspector, reactivated, and inexperienced bees changed depending on the reward rate offered. Therefore, not only the occurrence and intensity of the recruitment-related behaviors performed by the test bees, but also the stimulation required by each category of incoming bees, determined the social output observed. 相似文献
16.
Food quality is a relevant characteristic to be transferred within eusocial insect colonies because its evaluation improves
the collective foraging efficiency. In honeybees, colony mates could directly acquire this resource characteristic during
trophallactic encounters with nectar foragers. In the present study, we focused on the gustatory responsiveness of bees that
have unloaded food from incoming foragers. The sugar sensitivity of receiver bees was assessed in the laboratory by using
the proboscis extension response paradigm. After unloading, hive bees were captured either from a colony that foraged freely
in the environmental surroundings or from a colony that foraged at an artificial feeder with a known sucrose solution. In
the first situation, the sugar sensitivity of the hive bees negatively correlated with the sugar concentration of the nectar
crops brought back by forager mates. Similarly, in the controlled situation, the highest sucrose concentration the receivers
accepted during trophallaxis corresponded to the highest thresholds to sucrose. The results indicate that first-order receivers
modify their sugar sensitivity according to the quality of the food previously transferred through trophallaxis by the incoming
foragers. In addition, trophallaxis is a mechanism capable of transferring gustatory information in honeybees. Its implications
at a social scale might involve changes in the social information as well as in nectar distribution within the colony. 相似文献
17.
Michael Hrncir Sidnei Mateus Fábio S. Nascimento 《Behavioral ecology and sociobiology》2007,61(6):975-983
An efficient exploitation of carbohydrate food sources would be beneficial for social wasp species that store nectar within
their nest. In the swarm-founding polistine wasp Polybia occidentalis, we now demonstrate that the decisions of when and where to forage are influenced by information from conspecifics. Only
when foragers had been trained to collect at artificial carbohydrate feeders did newcomers (food-source-naive individuals)
continuously arrive at these feeders during 2 h of experiment. In control tests, in which no forager had been trained, not
a single newcomer alighted at any of the offered carbohydrate food sources. This indicates that, during the foraging process,
a nest-based input provided by successful foragers must have stimulated nestmates to search for food. Once activated, the
newcomers’ choice on where to collect was strongly influenced by field-based social information. The mere visual presence
of accumulated conspecifics (wasp dummies placed on one of the feeders) attracted newcomers to the food sources. Interestingly,
however, visual enhancement was not the only decision-biasing factor at the feeding site. In an experimental series where
searching wasps had to choose between the experimental feeder at which 3 foragers continuously collected and the control feeder
with nine wasp dummies, only 40% of the wasps chose the visually enhanced feeder. This points to the existence of additional
mechanisms of local enhancement. The possibility that, in social wasps, recruitment is involved in the exploitation of carbohydrate
food sources is discussed. 相似文献
18.
James C. Nieh 《Behavioral ecology and sociobiology》1998,43(1):47-58
Melipona panamica foragers can deposit a scent beacon that influences the orientation of foragers near a food source. In misdirection experiments,
newcomers (bees from the same colony as trained foragers) consistently preferred the feeder at which trained foragers had
fed (training feeder) over an identical feeder at which bees had never fed (control feeder) even when the training feeder
was placed at a site where experienced foragers had never foraged. Through similar misdirection experiments, the effective
radius of the scent beacon was determined to be greater than 6 and less than 12 m. Foragers may deposit this beacon during
a sequence of departure behaviors performed at the feeder. Prior to leaving the feeder with a load of sugar solution, bees
tended to perform the following sequence of behaviors: (1) spinning, (2) grooming, (3) abdomen dragging, (4) excreting anal
droplets, and (5) producing sounds, although not all behaviors were performed prior to each departure or at all sucrose concentrations
(0.5–2.5 m). As sucrose concentration increased, the number of newcomers significantly increased, and the number of experienced foragers
producing sounds and spinning on the feeder increased. The exact source of the scent beacon remains a mystery. However, three
important sources have been excluded. When choosing between identical paired feeders, foragers were not attracted to the feeders
with (1) anal droplets, (2) extracts of sucrose solution at which foragers had fed, or (3) mandibular gland extracts. They
were indifferent to the first two preparations and exhibited only typical alarm behavior towards the mandibular gland (MG)
extract: they oriented towards the feeder with MG extract but consistently landed on the feeder with no MG extract. Other
authors have suggested that Melipona foragers deposit anal droplets to attract recruits, however the frequency of anal droplet production and the mass of anal
droplets produced by M. panamica foragers are negatively correlated with sucrose concentration. Thus the scent beacon is evidently not deposited with anal
droplets, infused into the feeder solution, or produced by mandibular glands.
Received: 2 September 1997 / Accepted after revision: 30 January 1998 相似文献
19.
Christoph Grüter Luis E. Acosta Walter M. Farina 《Behavioral ecology and sociobiology》2006,60(5):707-715
Transfer of information about food source characteristics within insect societies is essential to colony-foraging success. The food odor communicated within honeybee hives has been shown to be important for food source exploitation. When successful foragers return to the nest and transfer the collected nectar to hive mates through mouth-to-mouth contacts (trophallaxis), potential recruits receiving these samples learn the food odor by associative learning. The food then becomes rapidly distributed among colony members, which is mainly a consequence of the numerous trophallaxes between hive-mates of all ages during food processing. We tested whether the distribution of food among hive mates causes a propagation of olfactory information within the hive. Using the proboscis extension response paradigm, we show that large proportions of bees of the age groups representing the main worker castes, 4 to 9-day-old bees (nurse-aged bees), 12 to 16-day-old bees (food processor-aged bees), and actual foragers (about 17+ day old bees) associatively learn the food odor in the course of processing food that has been collected by only a few foragers. Results further suggest that the information is shared more or less equally between bees of the three age groups. This shows that olfactory information about the flower species exploited by foragers is distributed within the entire colony and is acquired by bees of all age groups, which may influence many behaviors inside and outside the hive. 相似文献
20.
Claudia Dreller Robert E. Page Jr. M. Kim Fondrk 《Behavioral ecology and sociobiology》1999,45(3-4):227-233
Pollen storage in a colony of Apis mellifera is actively regulated by increasing and decreasing pollen foraging according to the “colony's needs.” It has been shown that
nectar foragers indirectly gather information about the nectar supply of the colony from nestmates without estimating the
amount of honey actually stored in the combs. Very little is known about how the actual colony need is perceived with respect
to pollen foraging. Two factors influence the need for pollen: the quantity of pollen stored in cells and the amount of brood.
To elucidate the mechanisms of perception, we changed the environment within normal-sized colonies by adding pollen or young
brood and measured the pollen-foraging activity, while foragers had either direct access to them or not. Our results show
that the amount of stored pollen, young brood, and empty space directly provide important stimuli that affect foraging behavior.
Different mechanisms for forager perception of the change in the environment are discussed.
Received: 13 June 1998 / Accepted after revision: 25 October 1998 相似文献