Temporal and spatial foraging patterns of three Asian honey bee species in Bangalore, India

Young, Allison M.; Kohl, Patrick L.; Rutschmann, Benjamin; Steffan‐Dewenter, Ingolf; Brockmann, Axel; Dyer, Fred C.

doi:10.1007/s13592-020-00839-1

Cited by 14 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 75 publications

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“…To test intruding attempts and intruder acceptance in nestmates and non-nestmates in A. florea and A. dorsata under natural condition, we collected workers from foreign colonies located at least 6 km away from the test colonies. Here, the distances exceed the expected gathering distances of both species, as resource availability in the landscape was very high at the time of our experiment, which is why at the same site and at the same phenological time even the larger A. dorsata forages only up to 3 km [46]. Workers were either collected directly from the bee curtain or from a feeder where bees were trained.…”

Section: Plos Onementioning

confidence: 77%

“…Here, the distances exceed the expected gathering distances of both species, as resource availability in the landscape was very high at the time of our experiment, which is why at the same site and at the same phenological time even the larger A . dorsata forages only up to 3 km [ 46 ]. Workers were either collected directly from the bee curtain or from a feeder where bees were trained.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Increased complexity of worker CHC profiles in Apis dorsata correlates with nesting ecology

et al. 2022

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Cuticular hydrocarbons (CHC) are known to serve as discrimination cues and will trigger defence behaviour in a plethora of eusocial insects. However, little is known how about nestmate recognition ability selects for CHC diversification. In this study we investigate differences in CHC composition of four major honey bee species with respect to the differences in their nesting behavior. In contrast to A. mellifera, A. cerana and A. florea, the giant honey bee A. dorsata prefers to build their nests in aggregations with very small spatial distances between nests, which increases the probability of intrusions. Thus, A. dorsata exhibits a particularly challenging nesting behavior which we hypothesize should be accompanied with an improved nestmate recognition system. Comparative analyses of the worker CHC profiles indicate that A. dorsata workers exhibit a unique and more complex CHC profile than the other three honey bee species. This increased complexity is likely based on a developmental process that retains the capability to synthesize methyl-branched hydrocarbons as adults. Furthermore, two sets of behavioral experiments provide evidence that A. dorsata shows an improved nestmate discrimination ability compared to the phylogenetically ancestral A. florea, which is also open-nesting but does not form nest aggregations. The results of our study suggest that ecological traits like nesting in aggregation might be able to drive CHC profile diversification even in closely related insect species.

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Section: Plos Onementioning

confidence: 77%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Increased complexity of worker CHC profiles in Apis dorsata correlates with nesting ecology

et al. 2022

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“…Apis dorsata is often found in cities (Saravanan et al, 2020) where it is likely to be affected by light pollution. Apis dorsata increases its activity into the night in the waxing or waning period of the moon between half-moon and full moon cycles (Dyer 1985;Young et al, 2021), since that quantity of moonlight is above the illumination threshold required for the optimal functioning of its optical system. Still, the impact of ALAN on this A. dorsata is presently unknown.…”

Section: Effect Of Alan On Diurnal Insectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impacts of Artificial Light at Night on Nocturnal and Diurnal Insect Biology and Diversity

Borges

2022

ije

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Artificial light at night (ALAN) is leading to light pollution on local and global scales. Reflected and scattered light contributes to skyglow over cities and large industrial complexes. ALAN is one of the key drivers of insect declines in the Anthropocene era. This is the likely consequence of perturbations in circadian clocks by extension and even abolition of the dark phase of the diel cycle, which affect reproduction and foraging. Bioluminescent insects that use light as sexual signals are severely affected by ALAN and may be under sexual selection for even brighter signals. The phototactic response of insects to light is also causing mortality due to increased predation and altered activity. Mitigatory measures are urgently needed to stem insect declines and to ‘protect’ the role of insects in community ecology. New satellite technology for ALAN measurement is urgently required. There are many research gaps, such as the effect of ALAN on diurnal insects and on interaction networks, that need to be filled.

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“…Irrespective of the contribution to basic research, our results have direct implications for an ecological application of the waggle dance. Eavesdropping on waggle dances and decoding their spatial information of is a unique tool to study where honey bee colonies collect forage, and thus to explore how key generalist flower visitors evaluate the landscape (Visscher & Seeley, 1982;Couvillon, Schürch & Ratnieks, 2014;Wario et al, 2017;Young et al, 2021). To infer the distances of unknown food sites, researchers have measured either circuit duration (e.g.…”

Section: Implications For Waggle Dance Decodingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Honey bees communicate distance via non-linear waggle duration functions

Kohl¹,

Rutschmann²

2021

PeerJ

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Honey bees (genus Apis) can communicate the approximate location of a resource to their nestmates via the waggle dance. The distance to a goal is encoded by the duration of the waggle phase of the dance, but the precise shape of this distance-duration relationship is ambiguous: earlier studies (before the 1990s) proposed that it is non-linear, with the increase in waggle duration flattening with distance, while more recent studies suggested that it follows a simple linear function (i.e. a straight line). Strikingly, authors of earlier studies trained bees to much longer distances than authors of more recent studies, but unfortunately they usually measured the duration of dance circuits (waggle phase plus return phase of the dance), which is only a correlate of the bees’ distance signal. We trained honey bees (A. mellifera carnica) to visit sugar feeders over a relatively long array of distances between 0.1 and 1.7 km from the hive and measured the duration of both the waggle phase and the return phase of their dances from video recordings. The distance-related increase in waggle duration was better described by a non-linear model with a decreasing slope than by a simple linear model. The relationship was equally well captured by a model with two linear segments separated at a “break-point” at 1 km distance. In turn, the relationship between return phase duration and distance was sufficiently well described by a simple linear model. The data suggest that honey bees process flight distance differently before and beyond a certain threshold distance. While the physiological and evolutionary causes of this behavior remain to be explored, our results can be applied to improve the estimation of honey bee foraging distances based on the decoding of waggle dances.

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Temporal and spatial foraging patterns of three Asian honey bee species in Bangalore, India

Cited by 14 publications

References 75 publications

Increased complexity of worker CHC profiles in Apis dorsata correlates with nesting ecology

Increased complexity of worker CHC profiles in Apis dorsata correlates with nesting ecology

Impacts of Artificial Light at Night on Nocturnal and Diurnal Insect Biology and Diversity

Honey bees communicate distance via non-linear waggle duration functions

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