Inter-individual variability in the foraging behaviour of traplining bumblebees

Klein, Simon; Pasquaretta, Cristian; Barron, Andrew B.; Devaud, Jean-Marc; Lihoreau, Mathieu

doi:10.1038/s41598-017-04919-8

Cited by 49 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…In particular, there is typically a behavioral continuum from the smallest to the largest 95 workers, which tend towards specialization in nursing and foraging, respectively (Alford, 1975;96 Brian, 1952;Cumber, 1949;Free, 1955;Gardner et al, 2007;Goulson et al, 2002;Yerushalmi 97 et al, 2006; for a recent review see Chole et al 2019, in press). Large body size is also 98 associated with anatomical and morphological features which appear to contribute to 99 increased foraging performance (Klein et al, 2017;Spaethe and Weidenmuller, 2002 (Yerushalmi et al, 2006). There is also evidence suggesting that smaller bees may be better 106 suited to performing some in-nest activities .…”

Section: Introduction 42mentioning

confidence: 99%

Is diversity in worker body size important for the performance of bumble bee colonies?

Holland

Nakayama

Porfiri

et al. 2020

Preprint

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16Specialization and plasticity are important for many forms of collective behavior, but the 17 interplay between these factors is little understood. In insect societies, workers are often 18 predisposed to specialize in different tasks, sometimes with morphological or physiological 19 adaptations, facilitating a division of labor. Workers may also plastically switch between tasks 20 or vary their effort. The degree to which predisposed specialization limits plasticity is not clear 21and has not been systematically tested in ecologically relevant contexts. We addressed this 22 question in 20 freely-foraging bumble bee (Bombus terrestris) colonies by continually 23 manipulating colonies to contain either a typically diverse or reduced ("homogeneous") worker 24 body size distribution, over two trials. Pooling both trials, diverse colonies did better in several 25indices of colony performance. The importance of body size was further demonstrated by the 26 finding that foragers were larger than nurses even in homogeneous colonies with a very 27 narrow body size range. However, the overall effect of size diversity stemmed mostly from one 28 trial. In the other trial, homogeneous and diverse colonies showed comparable performance. 29By comparing behavioral profiles based on several thousand observations, we found evidence 30 that workers in homogeneous colonies in this trial rescued colony performance by plastically 31 increasing behavioral specialization and/or individual effort, compared to same-sized 32 individuals in diverse colonies. Our results are consistent with a benefit to colonies of 33 predisposed (size-diverse) specialists under certain conditions, but also suggest that plasticity 34 or effort, can compensate for reduced (size-related) specialization. Thus, we suggest that an 35 intricate interplay between specialization and plasticity is functionally adaptive in bumble bee 36 colonies. 37 Keywords: bumble bee, division of labor, task specialization, behavioral plasticity, collective 38 behavior 39 Short title: Bumble bee size diversity 40 41

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Section: Introduction 42mentioning

confidence: 99%

Is diversity in worker body size important for the performance of bumble bee colonies?

Holland

Nakayama

Porfiri

et al. 2020

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Yakubu & Okunsebor, 2011;Dunham, Maitner, Razafindratsima, Simmons, & Roy, 2013;Khargharia, Kadirvel, Humar, Doley, Bharti, & Das, 2015), behavioural ecology (e.g. Adamo, Kovalko, & Mosher, 2013;Hassrick, Crocker, & Costa, 2013;Nath, Singha, Deb, Das, & Lahkar, 2015;Willems, Arseneau, Schleuning, & van Schaik, 2015;Klein, Pasquaretta, Barron, Devaud, & Lihoreau, 2017), sociality (e.g. Schino, & Aureli, 2008;Fraser & Bugnyar, 2010;McFarland & Majolo, 2011;Rebecchini, Schaffner, & Aureli, 2011;Fraser, Koski, De Vries, Van de Kraats, & Sterck, 2012;Moreno, Highfill, & Kuczaj, 2017;), welfare (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Data reduction analyses of animal behaviour: avoiding Kaiser's criterion and adopting more robust automated methods

Morton

2019

Animal Behaviour

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Data reduction analyses like principal components and exploratory factor analyses identify relationships within a set of potentially correlated variables, and cluster correlated variables into a smaller overall quantity of groupings. Because of their relative objectivity, these analyses are popular throughout the animal literature to study a wide variety of topics. Numerous authors have highlighted "best practice" guidelines for component/factor "extraction", i.e. determining how many components/factors to extract from a data reduction analysis, because this can greatly impact the interpretation, comparability, and replicability of one's results. Statisticians agree that Kaiser's criterion, i.e. extracting components/factors with eigenvectors >1.0, should never be used yet within the animal literature, a considerable number of authors still use it, including publications as recent as 2018, and across a wide range of taxa (e.g. insects, birds, fish, mammals) and topics (e.g. personality, cognition, health, morphology, reproduction). It is therefore clear that further awareness is needed to target the animal sciences to ensure that results optimise structural stability, and thus, comparability and reproducibility. In the present commentary, we first clarify the distinction between principal components and exploratory factor analyses in terms of analysing simple versus complex structures, and how this relates to component/factor extraction. Second, we highlight empirical evidence from simulation studies to explain why certain extraction methods are more reliable than others, including why automated methods are better, and why Kaiser's criterion is inappropriate and should therefore never be used. Third, we provide recommendations on what to do if multiple automated extraction methods "disagree" which can arise when dealing with complex structures. Finally, we explain how to perform and interpret more robust and automated extraction tests using R.

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“…These species, which can have home ranges of up to 6-ha (Volpe et al, 2014; Volpe et al, 2016), are thought to forage along established routes and repeatedly visit particular plants that offer high nectar rewards (Janzen, 1971; Tello-Ramos et al, 2015). In consequence, traplining hummingbirds potentially enhance long-distance pollen transfer and reduce pollination among neighboring or nearby plants (Taylor and White, 2007; Temeles et al, 2019), as their foraging routes result in high fidelity to their “favorite” plants (Saleh and Chittka, 2007; Klein et al, 2017). Moreover, pollen transfer among neighboring plants by trapliners may be further reduced due to the aggressive behavior of territorial hummingbirds.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Landscape Genetic Signature of Pollination by Trapliners: Evidence From the Tropical Herb, Heliconia tortuosa

et al. 2019

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Animal-mediated pollination is essential for the maintenance of plant reproduction, especially in tropical ecosystems, where pollination networks have been thought to have highly generalized structures. However, accumulating evidence suggests that not all floral visitors provide equally effective pollination services, potentially reducing the number of realized pollinators and increasing the cryptic specialization of pollination networks. Thus, there is a need to understand how different functional groups of pollinators influence pollination success. Here, we examined whether patterns of contemporary pollen-mediated gene flow in Heliconia tortuosa are consistent with the foraging strategy of its territorial or traplining hummingbird pollinators. Territorial hummingbirds defend clumps of flowers and are expected to transfer pollen locally. In contrast, traplining hummingbirds forage across longer distances, thereby increasing pollen flow among forest fragments, and are thought to repeatedly visit particular plants. If trapliners indeed visit the same plants repeatedly along their regular routes, this could lead to a situation where neighboring plants sample genetically distinct pollen pools. To test this hypothesis, we genotyped 720 seeds and 71 mother plants from 18 forest fragments at 11 microsatellite loci. We performed TwoGener analysis to test pollen pool differentiation within sites (among neighboring plants within the same forest fragment: Φ SC) and between sites (among forest fragments: Φ CT). We found strong, statistically significant pollen pool differentiation among neighboring mother plants (Φ SC = 0.0506), and weaker, statistically significant differentiation among sites (Φ CT = 0.0285). We interpret this pattern of hierarchical pollen pool differentiation as the landscape genetic signature of the foraging strategy of traplining hummingbirds, where repeatable, long-distance, and high-fidelity routes transfer pollen among particular plants. Although H. tortuosa is also visited by territorial hummingbirds, our results suggest that these pollinators do not contribute substantially to successful pollination, highlighting differences in realized pollination efficiency. This cryptic reduction in the number of realized pollinators potentially increases the vulnerability of pollination success to the decline of populations of traplining hummingbirds, which have been shown to be sensitive to forest fragmentation. We conclude that maintaining habitat connectivity to sustain the foraging routes of trapliners may be essential for the maintenance of pollen-mediated gene flow in human-modified landscapes.

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Inter-individual variability in the foraging behaviour of traplining bumblebees

Cited by 49 publications

References 66 publications

Is diversity in worker body size important for the performance of bumble bee colonies?

Is diversity in worker body size important for the performance of bumble bee colonies?

Data reduction analyses of animal behaviour: avoiding Kaiser's criterion and adopting more robust automated methods

The Landscape Genetic Signature of Pollination by Trapliners: Evidence From the Tropical Herb, Heliconia tortuosa

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