Parental care and sexual size dimorphism in wasps and bees

Shreeves, Gavin; Field, Jeremy

doi:10.1007/s00265-007-0510-3

Cited by 29 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…The males were smaller than females, as commonly observed in insects [29,45]. They also had very low overall fat content and a proportion of fat comparable to the one of B1 females, consistent with the idea that fat reserves are for overwintering and colony founding [13].…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 79%

“…In contrast, the low size variability in B1 females of H. scabiosae is consistent with the parental manipulation hypothesis [22]: it suggests that foundresses constrain the food resources to rear uniformly small B1 females that will behave as workers. Conversely, if the survival and fecundity of reproductive females (gynes) increase gradually with body size and energetic reserves [13,29,45], variation in resources or brood number might result in high size variability in B2 females.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Born to be bee, fed to be worker? The caste system of a primitively eusocial insect

Brand

Chapuisat

2012

Front Zool

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IntroductionPrimitively eusocial halictid bees are excellent systems to study the origin of eusociality, because all individuals have retained the ancestral ability to breed independently. In the sweat bee Halictus scabiosae, foundresses overwinter, establish nests and rear a first brood by mass-provisioning each offspring with pollen and nectar. The mothers may thus manipulate the phenotype of their offspring by restricting their food provisions. The first brood females generally help their mother to rear a second brood of males and gynes that become foundresses. However, the first brood females may also reproduce in their maternal or in other nests, or possibly enter early diapause. Here, we examined if the behavioural specialization of the first and second brood females was associated with between-brood differences in body size, energetic reserves and pollen provisions.ResultsThe patterns of variation in adult body size, weight, fat content and food provisioned to the first and second brood indicate that H. scabiosae has dimorphic females. The first-brood females were significantly smaller, lighter and had lower fat reserves than the second-brood females and foundresses. The first-brood females were also less variable in size and fat content, and developed on homogeneously smaller pollen provisions. Foundresses were larger than gynes of the previous year, suggesting that small females were less likely to survive the winter.ConclusionsThe marked size dimorphism between females produced in the first and second brood and the consistently smaller pollen provisions provided to the first brood suggest that the first brood females are channelled into a helper role during their pre-imaginal development. As a large body size is needed for successful hibernation, the mother may promote helping in her first brood offspring by restricting their food provisions. This pattern supports the hypothesis that parental manipulation may contribute to promote worker behaviour in primitively eusocial halictids.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 79%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Born to be bee, fed to be worker? The caste system of a primitively eusocial insect

Brand

Chapuisat

2012

Front Zool

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“…A multitude of biotic and small‐scale environmental factors were previously hypothesized or demonstrated to correlate with mating systems or SSD. They include heterogeneity in the quality of territories (Verner and Willson , Orians ), population density (Lukas and Clutton‐Brock ), spatial and temporal clumping of resources (Emlen and Oring ), prey type (Krüger , Shreeves and Field ), male display behaviour (Székely et al , Serrano‐Meneses and Székely ) or breeding in cooperative groups (Rubenstein and Lovette ). Due to the lack of species‐specific data on these variables, it is currently impossible to model effects of these factors on a global scale.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global geographic patterns of sexual size dimorphism in birds: support for a latitudinal trend?

Friedman

Remeš

2015

Ecography

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Sexual size dimorphism (SSD) is widespread among animals, and is a common indication of differential selection among males and females. Sexual selection theory predicts that SSD should increase as one sex competes more fiercely for access to mates, but it is unclear what effect spatial variation in ecology may have on this behavioral process and SSD. Here, we examine SSD across the class Aves in a spatial and phylogenetic framework, and test several a priori hypotheses regarding its relationship with climate. We mapped the global distribution of SSD from published descriptions of body size, distribution, and phylogenetic relationships across 2581 species of birds. We examined correlations between SSD and nine predictor variables representing a priori models of physical geography, climate, and climate variability. Our results show some support for a global latitudinal trend in SSD based on a weak prevalence of species with low or female‐biased SSD in the north, but substantial spatial heterogeneity. While several stronger relationships were observed between SSD and climate predictors within zoogeographical regions, no global relationship emerged that was consistent across multiple methods of analysis. The strong phylogenetic signal and conspicuous lack of support from phylogenetically corrected analyses suggests that any such relationship in birds is likely obscured by the idiosyncratic histories of different lineages. In this manner, our results agree with previous studies in other clades, leading us to conclude that the relationship between climate and SSD is at best complex. This suggests that SSD, and the behavioral dynamics underlying it, may be largely independent of environmental conditions at a global scale.

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“…Previously, these differences have been attributed to biogeographic factors, such as latitude (Martin, Proulx, & Magnan, 2014) and/or methodological influences such as sampling biases (e.g., the range of sampled body sizes, Sage, 1982). Importantly, they have also notably failed to incorporate sexual size dimorphism which is common in invertebrates (Shreeves & Field, 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pollinator size and its consequences: Robust estimates of body size in pollinating insects

Kendall

Rader

Gagić

et al. 2019

Ecology and Evolution

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Body size is an integral functional trait that underlies pollination‐related ecological processes, yet it is often impractical to measure directly. Allometric scaling laws have been used to overcome this problem. However, most existing models rely upon small sample sizes, geographically restricted sampling and have limited applicability for non‐bee taxa. Allometric models that consider biogeography, phylogenetic relatedness, and intraspecific variation are urgently required to ensure greater accuracy. We measured body size as dry weight and intertegular distance (ITD) of 391 bee species (4,035 specimens) and 103 hoverfly species (399 specimens) across four biogeographic regions: Australia, Europe, North America, and South America. We updated existing models within a Bayesian mixed‐model framework to test the power of ITD to predict interspecific variation in pollinator dry weight in interaction with different co‐variates: phylogeny or taxonomy, sexual dimorphism, and biogeographic region. In addition, we used ordinary least squares regression to assess intraspecific dry weight ~ ITD relationships for ten bees and five hoverfly species. Including co‐variates led to more robust interspecific body size predictions for both bees and hoverflies relative to models with the ITD alone. In contrast, at the intraspecific level, our results demonstrate that the ITD is an inconsistent predictor of body size for bees and hoverflies. The use of allometric scaling laws to estimate body size is more suitable for interspecific comparative analyses than assessing intraspecific variation. Collectively, these models form the basis of the dynamic R package, “ pollimetry, ” which provides a comprehensive resource for allometric pollination research worldwide.

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Parental care and sexual size dimorphism in wasps and bees

Cited by 29 publications

References 42 publications

Born to be bee, fed to be worker? The caste system of a primitively eusocial insect

Born to be bee, fed to be worker? The caste system of a primitively eusocial insect

Global geographic patterns of sexual size dimorphism in birds: support for a latitudinal trend?

Pollinator size and its consequences: Robust estimates of body size in pollinating insects

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