Forager specialization and the control of nest repair in Polybia occidentalis Olivier (Hymenoptera : Vespidae)

Abstract

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 tropcial social wasp Polybia occidentalis.(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.

Juvenile hormone, reproduction, and worker behavior in the neotropical social waspPolistes canadensis

“…However, the onset of outside-nest tasks coincides with worker ovary resorption (32), suggesting that JH could affect both. Although P. occidentalis resembles honey bees in having a well defined age polyethism and large colony size, it resembles Polistes and other primitively eusocial genera in not having morphologically distinct castes, with caste likely determined, as in other primitively eusocial swarming species, in the adult stage (33)(34)(35).…”

“…1, 3, and 4) is most apparent in ''highly eusocial'' species, or species with large colonies and morphologically discrete workers and queens, but it also occurs in ''primitively eusocial'' species, those with behaviorally but not morphologically distinct castes (1,5). Task allocation among an age cohort of workers is known to be sensitive to genetic variation (6,7) and to colony conditions, such as the size and age of the brood, nest damage, presence of predators and parasites, and the size and age of the worker population (2, 5, 8-13). Given the many factors that can affect task performance, the expression of age polyethism is highly variable both within and between species.…”

Division of labor during brood production in stingless bees with special reference to individual participation

“…These workers are called specialists or elite (Robson and Traniello, 1999). There is empirical evidence in favor of the existence of specialization in Hymenoptera (Rissing, 1981;Calderone and Page, 1988;O'Donnell and Jeanne, 1990). Kolmes and Sommeijer (1992), working with the stingless bee M. favosa, found that the construction of brood cells is a task performed by an elite group of workers.…”

“…Individual differentiation has been studied in other Hymenoptera, e.g. in ants (Gordon, 1999), wasps (O'Donnell and Jeanne, 1990) and in Apis bees (Visscher and Camazine, 1999). In stingless bees, intranidal individual behavior has been studied in Melipona favosa (Sommeijer et al, 1982;Kolmes and Sommeijer, 1992), M. bicolor (Bego, 1983), Trigona (Tetragonula) minangkabau (Inoue et al, 1996), and M. subnitida (Koedam et al, 1999).…”

Individual foraging, activity level and longevity in the stingless bee Melipona beecheii in Costa Rica (Hymenoptera, Apidae, Meliponinae)

“…They react to changes in colony need by initiating food collecting at younger age or by increasing their foraging activity when the food reserves are low (Fewell and Winston, 1992). Also, additional workers are allocated to nest repair when the nest is damaged (O'Donnell and Jeanne, 1990). Individuals alter the colony status by increasing the amount of food that is stored or by repairing the nest.…”