Does a polyandrous honeybee queen improve through patriline diversity the activity of her colony’s scouting foragers? |
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Authors: | Heather R Mattila and Thomas D Seeley |
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Institution: | (1) Department of Biological Sciences, Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA 02481, USA;(2) Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA |
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Abstract: | Recent studies indicate that the foraging success of a honeybee colony is enhanced when it has numerous genetically diverse
patrilines because of queen polyandry. We determined whether foraging is improved in part because patriline diversity generates
more responsive populations of scouting foragers. Scouts search for new food sources and advertise them with waggle dances
to inform other foragers about unexploited discoveries. We moved multiple-patriline and single-patriline colonies to unfamiliar
locations so that colonies relied heavily on successful scouts to initiate recruitment and then compared the development of
foraging effort between the two types of colonies. More waggle dance signals were produced during the incipient stages of
foraging in multiple-patriline colonies compared to single-patriline colonies because scouts reported food discoveries with
longer dances. Scouts also returned to multiple-patriline colonies at rates that were two thirds higher than those of single-patriline
colonies, although return rates for general forager populations were not significantly different between colony types. The
distance of reported food sources from hives increased with time for all colonies, but by the end of their first day in an
unfamiliar environment, maximal foraging reach was greater if colonies had multiple patrilines. Most scouts in multiple-patriline
colonies came from a minority of scout-rich patrilines that were generally not those from which general forager populations
were derived; the presence of such scout-rich patrilines was correlated with the extent of recruitment signaling in colonies.
We show how a honeybee colony’s scouting effort is (and is not) enhanced when extremely polyandrous queens produce genetically
diverse colonies. |
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Keywords: | |
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